MovieChat Forums > Kitchen Nightmares (2007) Discussion > Two Minutes

Two Minutes

posted 9 years ago by Bobby Briggs Briganza
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When Rameses calls people over for “two minutes”—or worse, “two seconds”—how long to you think he actually keeps them occupied for?

They’re busy as hell or otherwise indisposed and it’s always “Have you got 2 minutes?”

I guess that’s being more honest than just asking someone if they’ve got "a minute”—which usually ends up as more than one literal minute. However, that’s understood as a figure of speech. “TWO minutes” is a funny figure of speech.

Next thing you know, homies who haven’t seen each other in months will be saying, “Dang, ese! I haven’t seen you in two minutes!"

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[–] GraceFromSoCal 9 years ago

Yeah, I think it's a rather odd expression, too. Perhaps it's a British thing? 

Ironically, when someone asked Ramsay if HE had two minutes (the cranky chef, Erick, from Casa Roma), Ramsay replies, "two minutes? I've got a week!" 

--

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[–] FolinaD 9 years ago

There's a colloquial phrase where I live: "For a second." It means the opposite. "It was so nice to run into Tony! I hadn't seen him for a second." Second = long time. "You better pack a lunch. You're going to be there for a second!"

"Two minutes," may just be colloquial for "Undetermined time".

[–] SkiesAreBlue 9 years ago

We say here in Oz, "have you got a sec?" Which could mean anything. "Got a sec, lov, need help with moving/photo copying/ cleaning out the garage. You get the drift. In South Africa they had a saying, " See you just now" when they were actually saying, good bye.

SkiesAreBlue