

{"id":11208,"date":"2021-03-03T13:22:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T13:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=11208"},"modified":"2023-04-17T06:52:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-17T06:52:59","slug":"its-been-a-minute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/its-been-a-minute\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;It&#8217;s Been a Minute&#8221;: All You Need To Know About This Phrase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the hustle and bustle of modern life, we may go days, months, or even years without seeing our friends or beloved family members.<\/p>\n<p>This is unfortunate, but it can&rsquo;t always be helped. At the end of the day, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/basic-business-english-vocabulary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">work<\/a><\/strong> and other obligations must come before most social relationships.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, it&rsquo;s also very common to wait for other things. It may take years for that new season of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/how-the-turntables-meaning-origin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">your favorite show<\/a><\/strong> to finally come out, or you may do something and realize that you haven&rsquo;t had that same experience in over a decade.<\/p>\n<p>In such cases, it&rsquo;s natural to say that &ldquo;it&rsquo;s been a minute.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What Does &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Been a Minute&rdquo; Mean?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>The phrase &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a minute&rdquo; is used when an individual or multiple people have not done something for a very long time. When two friends meet after spending several weeks or months apart, someone may say that &ldquo;it&rsquo;s been a minute.&rdquo; You can also use the phrase to describe experiences and other things that you have not done for a long time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>When and How to Use the Phrase &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Been a Minute&rdquo;<\/h2>\n<p>This term is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/i-see-you\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pretty informal<\/a><\/strong>, so you wouldn&rsquo;t want to use it with your <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/thank-you-for-the-clarification\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">boss<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Older people probably won&rsquo;t understand this term, so it&rsquo;s better to express the sentiment in a more standard way.<\/p>\n<p>You should only use this phrase when you haven&rsquo;t seen someone or experienced something familiar in a long time.<\/p>\n<p>In the example below, Wilhelm and Nikolas are reuniting after spending several years apart.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p><strong>Wilhelm:<\/strong> Nikolas, is that really you? I almost didn&rsquo;t recognize you with the beard. It&rsquo;s so good to see you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nikolas:<\/strong> Likewise. It&rsquo;s been a minute, so I almost didn&rsquo;t recognize you either!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Nikolas and Wilhelm had spent so much time apart that when they finally reunited, they almost didn&rsquo;t recognize each other, so it was appropriate for Nikolas to say &ldquo;it&rsquo;s been a minute.&rdquo; In the next example, Tamuna and Caleb are eating at a restaurant.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p><strong>Tamuna:<\/strong> So, Caleb, what did you order for dessert?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Caleb:<\/strong> Well, I saw apple crisp on the menu and realized that it really has been a minute since I&rsquo;ve tasted some good apple crisp, so I went with that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tamuna:<\/strong> Darn! I should have ordered that. Promise that you&rsquo;ll give me a bite!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>As illustrated in this example, this phrase doesn&rsquo;t always have to be used when two people reunite; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/to-peak-in-high-school\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">it can also be used when somebody does something that they hadn&rsquo;t done in a long time<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, Caleb uses the phrase to describe that he hadn&rsquo;t eaten apple crisp in a while. Also, notice how Caleb modified the phrase.<\/p>\n<p>This is natural, and you may hear other variations and modifications of this phrase and many other phrases in the English language.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Origin of the Phrase &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Been a Minute&rdquo;<\/h2>\n<p>This phrase may have its origins in the term &ldquo;hot minute.&rdquo; A &ldquo;hot minute&rdquo; basically means a long time, and that phrase was first recorded in the mid-1800s.<\/p>\n<p>For several centuries, it&rsquo;s been normal to say that &ldquo;it&rsquo;s been a long time&rdquo; when reuniting with someone, so these two terms may have fused at some point within the last 150 years.<\/p>\n<p>However, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s been a minute&rdquo; has not been commonly used until the last decade, so this specific term is probably a more recent development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the hustle and bustle of modern life, we may go days, months, or even years without seeing our friends or beloved family members. This is unfortunate, but it can&rsquo;t always be helped. At the end of the day, work and other obligations must come before most social relationships. Similarly, it&rsquo;s also very common to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"","disable-critical-css":false,"_convertkit_action_broadcast_export":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1117],"tags":[407],"class_list":["post-11208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","category-vocabulary","tag-its-been-a-minute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11208"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25226,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11208\/revisions\/25226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}