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What does "mex" mean,as two seconds mex"
I know it does not mean Mexico or Mexican. I have also heard it used in the phrase “There a hard lot of money there. 6 million mex!
So it seems to some kind of slang intensifier.
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Mex: (slang) a half quantity or value of anything. Hence, two seconds Mex would be very fast (being half the time of two seconds).
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LikeDislikeMaybe you’re confused with 2 seconds max? As in maximum?
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LikeDislike@ Stephen Ambrose, if that’s the case, then why would “a lot of money, 6 million mex” be a lot of money? It’s still a lot, sure, but the fact that one would say it’s half of six million, is devaluing it off of comparison.
Regardless, it’s an extremely awkward word to use. Half of a previously established value, apparently. There are just many better ways to say half of a given value.
It seems to mean “very fast,” but I would like to know the origin. I have seen the “Mex” part abbreviated “Mex.” and so think it may indeed mean “Mexican.”
It is used in a story by Damon Runyon which was published in Reader Magazine, possibly around 1907, and his usage appears to have been capitalized and using a period: “Mex.”. Here is a link to his story:
https://damonrunyon.neocities.org/First_Stories/Two_Men_Named_Collins
The phrase is also found in 1925 article in Radio Magazine without the period:
https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio/20s/Radio-1925-02.pdf
Here it is in a 1934 pulp piece in Sky Fighters magazine, by “Lt. Frank Johnson,” a pseudonym used by several writers for that magazine:
https://ageofaces.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/time.pdf
In July 1943, “two seconds Mex.” appeared in an article called “Fightin’ Men Write Their Own Songs,” and was in the context of a song about joining the Air Corps:
http://www.digifind-it.com/woodbridge/DATA/Fordbeacon/1943/1943-07-09.pdf
L. Ron Hubbard used “two seconds Mex” in Dianetics: Evolution of a Science. That book has been reprinted several times, but the contents were originally published in May 1950 as an article in Astounding Science Fiction. Hubbard’s use of the phrase was at the end of a sentence, so naturally had a period after “Mex.”
Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on Runyon notes “He uses many slang terms (which go unexplained in his stories).” So maybe he just invented it?
If anyone can find any more history on how this phrase came about, post it here.
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