what is the correct definition for a "jiffy"?

Correct definition of 'jiffy,' tsuwm? Context. It depends upon context.

Now, do you know about the nanonaise connection to 'nano'?

Do you know what a galileo, a dyne, or a stigma is?

Hey, Maverick, you gave it away. They're all units of measure:

galileo Symbol: Gal ≡ 1 cm/s2 = 0,01 m/s2
dyne [French] Symbol: dyn ≡ 10-5 N
stigma ≡ 10-12m = 1 pm

I've got no idea what they measure, but they're handy little words for a limerick.

A galieo, a stigma and a dyne
Took a walk together on a line.
They wanted to settle
In a test of mettle
Who's the biggest and the broadest measure sign.

the correct definition for a "jiffy"

I used to know. And I've heard of the dyne but I only remember the defintion of a dyne-centimeter (Hint: it has all its many little legs wiggling in the air.)

what is the correct definition for a "jiffy"?

It's just a little slower than "as fast as humanly possible".

as fast as humanly possible ---

--- which is "afahp"* if you're in a hurry and you need something sooner than "asap".

* That's what it used to mean. Now it means "Ask Fiorina About Hewlett Packard". [That's how fast she got her walking papers.]

I'pretty sure that Jiffy is a U.S. peanut butter.


Acutally, I've got this conversion page stored in my favorites. It is very necessary in a country that has officially adopted the metric system but who's inhabitants just aren't taking to specific parts of it.

You will NEVER hear anybody say their weight or height in metric. Driving distances are in kilometres, but box/space sizing is in inches and feet. Foodstuffs are discussed in both metric and imperial, as in "Hun, can you go buy me a litre of orange juice, a half-pound of butter, yogurt - the small 150ml ones - and about a pound of sliced ham."

What is this mordant obsession with mushed peanuts, fer gawds' sakes?! Well, in the UK a Jiffy bag is a quilted postal sack - something like an insulated airline sick bag, so I guess that works!

and yeah, that sounds like my dear bilingual UK too, belM :) If I go down to the builders' merchants (lumber yeard), I would probably ask for 4.2m of 2" by 1" and so on! The only exception I 've noticed to the personal weight thing is that gym freaks and body fascists sometimes refer to their weight in kilos. Mebbe they think it sounds more technical...

Here in NZ, the tendency is for personal weights to be given in metric and height in feet and inches. This could be because all modern scales are metric. People likely to weigh themselves more often than they measure their own height.

Re: metric scales

Hmm. That may be part of the problem Veron. Scales are generally imperial, with the metric concersions underneath the imperials figures. There are also some electronic scales that you can switch to metric, but since everybody will say, "What is that in pounds?" when you say you weigh 60 kilograms, well, people just don't do it.

just a little slower than "as fast as humanly possible".

Back in the olde days, thirty years ago, a jiffy was something like 10 msec. Those were the days when the computer was in an air-conditioned room with three white lab coated acolytes tending its every need, you could tell what turn around time was going to be by looking at the flashing lights on the front panel, and it took three days to get your Fortran program run back only to find out you'd left out a comma in line 375.

We here prefer lumber meter, but.....

A jiffy can mean several different time intervals:

A short period of time or a moment. The origin of the word is unknown, but is believed to have first appeared in 1779.

In computing, the duration of one tick of the system timer interrupt. Typically, this time is 0.01 seconds.

In physics, the time taken for light to travel one centimetre (sometimes one foot, or sometimes the width of a nucleon)

In electronics, the time between alternating current power cycles (1/60 or 1/50 of a second) - see alternating current

An indeterminate amount of time from a few seconds to forever.

this last is how my dad used it, "I'll be home in a jiffy, Dear."

edit: btw, at the link mav gave, for time, you'll find 'shake' and 'wink'; but no jiffy.

Many years ago I was honored to get a chance to meet Grace Hopper, a little old lady in Navy dress whites, with a star on her shoulder and tennis shoes on her feet. Well, I don't remember if she had a star on her shoulder but she was a rear admiral (LH) at the time.

In her presentation she told about how she was once asked by a general officer what a nanosecond was, and she had an inspiration. She took some of that computer wire (the multicolored stranded stuff that used to be ubiquitous in computer labs) and cut it into lengths of about a foot. The time it takes for light to travel from one end of this wire to the other, she explained, is a nanosecond. I still have the wire and fond memories of having coffee with her after her presentation. We talked about Ireland, not COBOL.