'Hot Minute' Not Actually Equal to 60 Seconds?

This is awesome. ^©Michael Balasis.

"You know who I haven't seen in a minute?"

My guess is anyone who left this room more than 60 seconds ago, but I'd also surmise that's a wrong guess.

Apparently a "minute" is no longer a minute, but rather an incredibly long time. What?

I mean I know a "New York minute" is supposedly faster than a regular minute, the same as a decimal minute was longer. And I gather a "hot minute" must be something of kin, more than a regular minute in some fashion, as I have the vague understanding that a "hot mess" and a "hot tranny mess" are somehow messier (and possibly less heteronormative) than your typical mess.

Still, it's like people who use "literally" in place of "figuratively," or–as I used to champion–"couple" as a synonym for "few" not necessitating precisely two of anything. The word is being used for something decidedly opposite its actual meaning. A minute I can count in my head. I can look at a watch if I need to. But a MINUTE, well, that'd be more accurately measured by a calendar.

Call a girl phat and watch her bounce on your junk. Tell her she's looking mad stupid ill, fresh, and all kinds of tight up in here. What you're really saying is she's "sexy," "smartly dressed," and "provocative, possibly with a loose vagina." It's all opposites.

I'm not against this, I'm just against white kids using this kind of language since they tend to, you know, enunciate the emphasis out of all the cool slang. "What is up, my negro? Have you heard about Jamal and Taniqua? That bitch be all up in his business like he owes her something, just because he is her baby's daddy. Strumpets, man, they be tripping."