A jiffy is not a small jiff.
I find it ironic that the first recorded use of the word jiffy (and in plural, no less), is in Baron Munchhausen’s Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia (Humbly Dedicated and Recommended to Country Gentlemen), by Rudolf Erich Raspe. The book collects the tall tales of Hieronymous Karl Friedrich von Munchhausen, gentleman, soldier, and yarn-spinner. Among the marvellous travels are a trip to the moon on a beanstalk, and a really quick chariot ride from “just between the Isle of Wight and the main land of England” to the Rock of Gibraltar. How quick? According to a frequently repeated Internet “Did You Know!!!!?” trivial edification, precisely .06 seconds. “In short, having given a general discharge of their artillery, and three cheers, I cracked my whip, away we went, helter skelter, and in six jiffies I found myself and all my retinue safe and in good spirits just at the rock of Gibraltar.”
The irony I bask in, of course, is that many Internet “Did You Know!!!!?” trivia edifications are about as plausible as the good
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Bill Brohaugh
Baron out-beanstalking Jack all the way to the moon. And the particular edification I’m referring to has tall tale written all over it, though employing some deceptive truth:
A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for one one-hundredth of a second!
Yes, the word jiffy has been used to designate a unit of time, though the specific unit varies by usage and even by scientific discipline. It’s generally used to denote a hundredth of a second, as the Internet post indicates. It’s also apparently been used to mean a fiftieth of a second, a sixtieth of a second, a millisecond, a nanosecond, and 33.3564 picoseconds (or a “light centimeter”—the time it takes light to travel a centimeter, by analogy of light year). However, the exclamated Internet post is lying by implication: it’s set up to have the reader assume that the scientific word was used figuratively to create a vague and hyperbolic jiffy, as in “I’ll be there in a jiffy,” when the opposite is true. Most of the measurements I list above are related to computer cycles or functions. The six jiffies that expire during marvellous travel from point of origin to the Rock of Gibraltar by the good Baron were referenced in a book published in 1785, a time when—I believe it’s safe to say—computer use equaled its lowest point.
So, “A jiffy’ is an actual unit of time for one one-hundredth of a second!” is one of those eye-rollingly unamazing amazing facts, somewhat on the order of “A ‘mouse’ is an actual computer device!”
Now, for those who would have you believe that the original jiffy was a scientific measurement, let me say that we actually don’t know where the word came from (slang to describe lightning has been suggested, and I like the poetry that that suggests), but we do know that the word jiffy has been in use for upwards of 7.305099E+11 jiffies (at this writing). I believe that his quite fabulous figure would make the good Baron proud.