Two Ticks
| William: | Hello and welcome to The English We Speak, I'm William Kremer. |
| Wang Fei: | And I'm Wang Fei. So how are you today? |
| William: | Two ticks ... |
| Wang Fei: | What? |
| William: | Give me two shakes, Wang Fei, I just need to ... |
| Wang Fei: | Eh? What's that? |
| William: | I'll be with you in a jiffy ... |
| Wang Fei: | In a jiffy. What's a jiffy? William, what are you talking about? |
| William: | There, done now. I just needed to send a text. |
| Wang Fei: | But what were all those ticks and jiffys? |
| William: | Ahh, and shakes? |
| Wang Fei: | Yes. |
| William: | Well they're all expressions of time, Wang Fei. So they're ways of saying 'just a moment', or 'just a minute'. |
| Wang Fei: | I see. |
| William: | Two ticks. In English, we say clocks make this noise: tick tock, tick tock. So two ticks is just like saying two seconds. |
| Wang Fei: | Hmm. Two shakes? |
| William: | Yeah, the full phrase here is 'two shakes of a lamb's tail', but we shorten this to 'two shakes'. |
| Wang Fei: | Oh I see. Two shakes of a lamb's tail. English can be a very weird language! |
| William: | Yes, it can be! I guess that this is because lambs' tails shake very fast, so two shakes is a short time! And finally ... |
| Wang Fei: | In a jiffy. So in a jiffy also means 'in a short space of time'. But what's a jiffy? |
| William: | Well, you know what, Wang Fei? Nobody is completely sure of the origin of this word. But it has been in use for over 200 years! |
| Wang Fei: | 200 years! That's quite a long time. More than a jiffy! |
| William: | Yes, and that's several billion shakes of a lamb's tail. |
| Wang Fei: | Yes and all those ticks of a clock! Bye for now. |
| William: | Bye bye. |