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I had to look up "having a moment" in American. In British English it means being distracted, having a brain-fade, being a bit down. I think this article proba
by afandian 6y ago
I had to look up "having a moment" in American.
In British English it means being distracted, having a brain-fade, being a bit down. I think this article probably means the opposite...
- whimsicalism 6y agoIn American English it can mean either. Usually the use you mentioned would be if you said "I'm having a moment" or something along those lines.
- afandian 6y agoGood to know, thanks. Maybe I'm pre-conditioned to look for idiom-bending uses in blog post titles!
- ericras 6y ago"Needing a moment" or "I need a moment" in American English is the negative version.
- whimsicalism 6y ago"I'm having a moment" (I'm being dumb, I was being thoughtless, I am confused) and "I need a moment" mean two different negative things to this American.
- choward 6y agoI think it just means something different than the norm. "I'm having a moment" can be something positive in certain contexts.
- pizza 6y agoIt's interesting because as an American I'd find "having its/their/etc. moment" more common than "having a moment"
- joejoebags 6y agoThe original title was "WTF is Happening to OpenStreetMap" but I decided it was too clickbait-y. Interesting to learn that I used a uniquely American idiom--didn't realize that.
- splonk 6y agoAs a AmEng speaker, I think of "having a moment" as being a fairly recent idiom, maybe from the past decade or so. My personal classification of it is that it's used by the same generation that uses "bae", "cray", "totes", "YOLO", and terms of similar vintage. I have no idea if that's true or I'm just out of touch, but that's my impression of the phrase. Basically I feel like I tend to see it in titles of thinkpieces about newly popular things from people who are around 30.