"It has happened a couple of times."

[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.

[perrin42@mastodon.social]

@fedward @futurebird

Lot : Incest and a pillar of salt.

[mcduncanlab@mstdn.social]

@fedward @futurebird

I think it depends on the object measured.

A handful of sunflower seeds is quite a lot of sunflower seeds.

A handful of onions is 2-3.

A handful of kids is 4-8.

A handful of stars at twilight is between three and 20.

[lydiaconwell@todon.nl]

@u0421793 Yes, but 'a couple' is sometimes used colloquially to mean 'a few' @futurebird

[centretowner@urbanists.social]

@futurebird more than once, probably less than 6, but I don't care to look up the exact number for you.

[marthasterias@mastodon.green]

@futurebird i recently realised this might be a US/UK thing, in the UK it more often meant 2 (a couple or weeks = 2 weeks) while in the US it often meant a few.

[etnom@mastodon.world]

@jrdepriest @futurebird

To me, "It happened a couple of times" means a speaker has ruled out "it happened twice" since to say so would be too precise a statement: the event in question is somewhat loosely defined and smart people will disagree whether the 3rd, 4th or 5th occurrences count. We can all get behind the idea that at least two events unequivocally took place ("We've had a couple nice Presidents"), and there's a general consensus that there's not a whole lot more than that, if any.

[gobabu@mastodon.social]

@futurebird
It happened a cube or tesseract?

[ricosuave@mastodon.online]

@fedward @futurebird I have a handful of water molecules, which have a few atoms. Hand me a few bowling balls. My hands are full with this one bucket, which is too few buckets to empty a handful of oceans.

[rabidchaos@hachyderm.io]

@MCDuncanLab @fedward @futurebird Also the person doing the measuring. For me, even one kid would be a handful.

[u0421793@toot.pikopublish.ing]

@lydiaconwell @futurebird that’s literally absurd

[ricosuave@mastodon.online]

@futurebird "When a couple is too few, a handful will do": old Carpathian Hutsul saying.

[masek@infosec.exchange]

@fedward @futurebird Talking about a few cars, I would mean less than five. If I say “a few M&M” it surely is above five but not a full hand 😁

[linebyline@mastoart.social]

@funkula @futurebird Right? I always took it to mean *about* two, on the assumption that if someone wanted *exactly* two of something, they'd just say two. But probably also *at least* two because if they only wanted one, they'd just ask for a thing, not (directly) mentioning a number at all.

Or to go with the original example, they'd say it happened once, or just that it happened. And if they meant exactly two they'd say it happened twice.

[johntinker@hear-me.social]

@EricLawton @futurebird
I end up trying to figure out how to explain that one is, itself, a number. Or, identity. Close enough.