In a matter of months or years

[Mansfield]

I'm reading an NYTimes's article and I don't understand this expression :

In a matter of months or years, the entire effort has come undone [...]

Could somebody help me ?

 

[5jj]

It's roughly: In only a few months or years...

 

[Mansfield]

Ok, Thanks you :-D

 

[Skeptik]

(Not a teacher, just curious)

After thinking about this, using matter in this way is very abstract and contextual.

The best definition I can think of is "The substance of a situation", but this does not imply how important the situation is. It can be important or trivial.

Small matters
Big matters
Political matters
"What's the matter?" (What is the problem?)
Matters of the heart

The difficulty of overcoming a situation or the challenge (or a lack of challenge) "It is simply a matter of doing these things."

In this example, "In a matter of months", it implies that passage or time was insignificant or unimportant, no challenge. Without context, to an outsider, how does one know the significance of the situation? Maybe it was a big matter.


The worst is "Matter of fact". This phrase makes little sense to me when I try to analyze it. I typically translate it to mean "serious", but now I'm not so sure.

 

[catbert]

In this example, "In a matter of months", it implies that passage or time was insignificant or unimportant, no challenge. Without context, to an outsider, how does one know the significance of the situation? Maybe it was a big matter.

The worst is "Matter of fact". This phrase makes little sense to me when I try to analyze it. I typically translate it to mean "serious", but now I'm not so sure.

You are way overthinking it. It's just a figure of speech. All "matter of fact" means is "actually". As an adjective "matter-of-fact" means unemotional, dispassionate.

"In a matter of days/ months/ whatever" means it took that little time for the situation to unravel.