What it means
A perfectly logical Welsh expression meaning I will do it soon, just not right this second. It sounds contradictory but in Wales it makes complete sense. It means yes I heard you and I am getting to it, give me a moment. The tone carries all the meaning. Gentle now in a minute is patient. Sharp now in a minute means stop nagging me, mun.
Usage examples
"I'll take the bins out now in a minute, I said, settling deeper into the sofa. Three episodes later the bins were still there and she had that look."
"Mam asked if I had finished my homework, now in a minute I said, twenty minutes later she came back to find me reading the back of a cereal box instead, mun, she gave me the look."
"The mechanic in Swansea told me the car would be ready now in a minute, I left, came back at five, and he was just starting to look for the right spanner in the back of the workshop, calm as ever."
Where it comes from
Quiet collision of Welsh language word order with English vocabulary, where the construction nawr yn y munud translates word for word into the contradiction that sounds perfectly natural in any Cardiff kitchen. Welsh English is full of these gentle calques, surviving generations of bilingual households and chapel teas.
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