How long is a mo?

[ClumpingBambooIsALie]

Supremely trivial:

This evening, DP made us both a hot drink, sat down, and I joined him on the sofa. He finished the last thirty seconds of the YouTube video he'd been watching, and he said "Right, I'm going to bed in a mo." When I acted surprised, because he'd just made us a hot drink that I'd expect us to take at least ten minutes to drink, he replied, "I said in a mo, not right now!" It's context-dependent, obviously, but to me, "in a mo" usually means "extremely shortly", like maybe less than a minute or two. To him it seems to imply a longer period of time, which I'd probably describe as "soon" or "in a little while" rather than "in a mo".

YABU: Of course "I'm going to bed in a mo" means "I'm going to bed in a quarter of an hour or so when I've finished my drink"
YANBU: Agreed, "I'm going to bed in a mo" means I'm probably going to get up from the sofa in less than a couple of minutes.

@ABCeasyasdohrayme

Sec - anything up to 2 minutes

A minute - anything up to 5 minutes

A mo - anything up to 10 minutes

In a bit - any amount of time between 10 minutes and 24 hours.

Soon - at some point today

Later - at some point this week.

This is it. I'm stealing!

My Gran used to say she would do things 'presently' - never did figure out exactly what that meant, as sometimes she acted soon and other times not. As a kid I thought it meant when she fancied doing it and not before, but definitely at some point.

Just under a jiffy.

I'm embarrassed to say I've only just read the full thread so my post was pointless.

I'd interpret it as 'the next thing I do'

as in, when I've finished this, I'm going to bed (not about to go down a youtube rabbit hole/watch tv/do the ironing/load the dishwasher... before I go to bed)

To me "in a mo" means "when I have finished what I am doing right now"

So it could be less than a minute because I am waiting for the kettle to boil or 15 minutes because I am finishing my dinner.

It is a somewhat flexible concept!

Yes, to the last 2 posts.