"It has happened a couple of times."

[laurendw@mastodon.social]

@fedward @futurebird are we talking cats, children, or salt?

[ben@kwiecien.us]

@funkula @futurebird I noticed something interesting about this, which is when I was studying German I was taught that "a pair" (in German "ein paar") means "a few", and growing up as a native English speaker this is what I learned in early childhood, that "a couple" means "a few". I think the push to make the phrase mean only exactly two was a cultural trend that happened at some point stemming from pedantry.

[dank@jorts.horse]

@fedward @futurebird
once < couple/few < handful < bunch < many < lots < most

[kanamauna@sauropods.win]

@futurebird I think more than once but I can't be bothered to document or enumerate the occurrences.

[perrin42@mastodon.social]

@fedward @futurebird

Couple : Two
Few : Three
Some : Five
Several : Seven
Handful : Ten
Dozen : Twelve

[fay@lingo.lol]

@fedward
@futurebird a handful is 3 ≤ n ≤ 5, a few is heavily contextual. I'm missing a "they are not comparable" option here!

[adam@mastodon.joandadam.uk]

@futurebird I've always seen "a couple" as "two, with nonchalance". The answer is two, but I am far too cool, relaxed and/or mysterious to be specific.

[jf@urbanists.social]

@fedward @futurebird this hurts my brain. one is a numeric measurement and one is volumetric. so it depends on the size of your granules.

[mirabilos@toot.mirbsd.org]

@fedward @futurebird I think it depends on the total available. If it’s a small amount, a handful is more; if there’s a lot of it, a handful is less. So "a few" feels more stretchy to me.

Not a native speaker.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@varx @fedward @futurebird in west Asian markets, a handful could mean the absolute most you can fit in your hands.

[ehashman@cloudisland.nz]

@piebob @futurebird I'm glad it's not just me!!

[psycodepath@mastodon.social]

@fedward @futurebird 6/7

[u0421793@toot.pikopublish.ing]

@futurebird a couple is definitely only ever two. Two things can be coupled together, eg train carriages. The process of coupling them is to couple one to another. A married couple is two, when you send a card to the happy couple, you’re not imagining well maybe three or four or five of them got married and I hope they’re happy like that. The happy couple is two. In cables, a coupling connector doesn’t couple a bunch of things into a big mess of signals, it’ll couple one connector to another connector. Couple is always exactly two.


Two

[pattykimura@beige.party]

@futurebird Depends on who is saying, and how dodgy, remorseful, or guilty they seem.

[moot@cyberplace.social]

@futurebird aagh I looked at the results before voting and now I am irreversibly biased!

[robotistry@mstdn.ca]

@futurebird It has happened at least two, possibly three, probably not four, and definitely not five or more times.

If it's definitely only two, I would say "It has happened twice."

[robotistry@mstdn.ca]

@michael_w_busch @fedward @futurebird It could mean either?

In the same way "a couple" could mean "precisely 2" or "at least 2 and below 5 but I am uncertain about the precise number and it might be only two".

A "handful of peanuts" is how many fit in your hand.

A "handful of horses" is around five.

[robotistry@mstdn.ca]

@dank @fedward @futurebird

Cookies:
pinch < one < couple < few/handful < some < bunch < lots/many < all

Pie:
fraction < half < most < all

[chamomile@furry.engineer]

@futurebird To me it means two-ish. More than 1, probably two, but possibly more.

[technicaladept@techhub.social]

@futurebird couple means two. But if I know of 2 times it doesn’t necessarily follow that I know of all the times it has happened.