two-second rule

1 5.3

A belief that food dropped on the floor for less than two seconds is still safe to eat

noun
/ˈtuːˈsɛkənd ruːl/

Informal

: regla de los dos segundos

I know most of you are wondering if I drop my food on this floor, does the two second rule count?

I know most of you are wondering if I drop my food on this floor, does the two second rule count?

Examples

According to the two-second rule, food that falls on the floor for less than two seconds is still safe to eat.
She quickly picked up the cookie she dropped, confident in the two-second rule that it was still edible.
Many people believe in the two-second rule and will eat food that has fallen on the ground if they pick it up quickly.

Surface Forms

two-second rule singular

two-second rules plural

Morphology

two-second + rule

The compound 'two-second' clearly denotes a two-second time interval and 'rule' denotes a guideline, so the phrase transparently means a guideline that involves two seconds (commonly applied to dropped food). This compositional logic is straightforward and cross-linguistically familiar, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would infer the basic meaning.

Etymology

The phrase two-second rule comes from a simple idea: if you drop food and pick it up within two seconds, people say it is 'safe to eat'. So, the name became a quick way to talk about the informal rule that food left on the floor for a very short time can be eaten.