A Moment

[agamad]

Anybody know how long is a moment?

[johnk]

I'd hate to hang by my fingernails for one of the wifes moments!!

[Clanad]

I think johnk has hit the proverbial nail on the head... a moment is definable only by the person so defining it... One of modern life's multitudinous examples of circular reasoning, I suppose...

[heathfield]

A ''moment'' was a unit of time used in Medieval times and was equal to 1/40th of an hour, (1.5 minutes). Source

[Quizmonster]

As a matter of interest, in medi�val times, it was a tenth part of a point and a point was either a quarter or a fifth of an hour. Thus a moment might have been a minute and a half or a minute. It's rather shorter, generally speaking, nowadays, though it might easily extend that far even today!

[Quizmonster]

Ah! your answer wasn't there when I went off to look it up, Heathfield! My source was The Oxford English Dictionary.

[agamad]

Cheers guys. It was a long shot asking but you came through in spades (where does THAT come from!?!?). My faith in ABers' remains solid.

[fredpuli47]

"In spades" ? From card games e.g bridge.The suits of cards are ranked: spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades being the highest. So, in bridge, a contract 'in spades' (a promise to take a given number of tricks when spades are trumps) scores more than a contract in clubs. ( I simplify: bridge has more complexity than that suggests, but the example is true)
So 'in spades' indicates being in an exceptionally good position, better than average, better than at first appears ,since a card in spades with the same face value as a card in diamonds or clubs is worth more than those.

[agamad]

Thanks Fred, slipped that one in but I didn't think anybody would pick up on it having had my main question answered. Nevertheless,a very comprehensive answer. Just what i've come to expect from AB.