booman2 wrote:Setanta,
.....I'll bet you probably do a slow burn when someone says "just ONE second".

...when I'm in a good mood, I'll say something like "go ahead and take more time." If I'm feeling a bit more devilish, I'll proclaim, "ONE THOUSAND ONE".
Dear Booman and I do mean dear, honestly I do.
"The world of words is just as wonderous as the world of syntax, or even more so. ... Though most common words have many meanings, few meanings have more than one word. That is homonyms are plentiful, synonyms rare. ... No one knows why languages are so stingy with words and profligate with meanings, but children seem to expect it." {S Pinker}
Why is this lost on adults? If you check any dictionary, you'll find that 'second', like so many words in English, has more than one meaning.
In "wait a second", the meaning is not 1/60th of a minute, the meaning is as in #2 below, "a very short time", aka 'moment'.
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OED:
second2
/sekknd/
noun 1 the unit of time in the SI system, equal to one-sixtieth of a minute.
2 informal a very short time. 3 (also arc second or second of arc) a sixtieth of a minute of angular distance.
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But you knew that already because you are an native speaker. Actually, 'second' plays a role comprising 4 parts of speech with somewhere around 20 meanings. And you know all these too.
EDITED: I see you have company in the form of Setanta. Maybe you can clue him in, Booman.