Talk:in a jiffy

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in a jiffy

Entry claims idiomaticity but I disagree. I'll be there in a jiffy, in a minute, in a few seconds, in just a tick, in half a mo, in a year or two. It's just use of the existing sense at in ("after a period of time"). Equinox ◑ 15:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Delete. See also google books:"for a jiffy" e.g.—msh210℠ 16:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I’ve never heard "for a jiffy" and would think anyone who said or wrote it a foreigner. in a jiffy is an extremely common adverb and we should have it. Keep. —Stephen 20:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you think it's somehow distinct from my other examples above (in a minute etc.), or do you perhaps think that those other examples deserve entries? What is the difference? Equinox ◑ 23:52, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Keep per Stephen G. Brown. msh210's link has demonstrated that for some speakers, (deprecated template usage) jiffy means "(colloquial) A very short, unspecified length of time." (as our entry for it says), but personally, I'd never encountered that sense outside of this expression (which is common in the Midwest) and a few proper nouns, and until now it never occurred to me that Jiffy Lube's name was trying to convey something. Stephen's comment tells me that his experience is similar. —Ruakh_TALK 00:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Idiomaticity seems clear to me as has been demonstrated in that the word jiffy is virtually non-existent outside of this phrase. __meco 11:13, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

For something to "take a jiffy" is very common. Equinox ◑ 22:09, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, I've never heard it. I would say semi-strong keep if in a jiffy is the origin of the meaning of jiffy, if the phrase had existed before the word was used independently, although I'm honestly not sure how we handle those situations. Otherwise semi-weak keep because jiffy is less well known and therefore could have contextual information that differs from that of the phrase. 63.95.64.254 02:48, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Strong keep per meco. As I've said elsewhere, this tendency of treating words/senses which only occur in one or two set phrases by defining them at the words' entries and deleting those set phrases as SoP's is possibly understandable but certainly anything but helpful to a user. --Duncan 12:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Strong keep. An idiomatic prepositional phrase. -- ALGRIF talk 17:38, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Keep, as above. Mglovesfun 23:46, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Kept. 63.95.64.254 00:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)