Timeline for What does “a couple” mean to you, and what does “a few” mean to you?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 12, 2020 at 13:56 | comment | added | Conrado | A few people distinguish "some" and "several" | |
| Jul 6, 2015 at 17:31 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | → a 30% fail rate to be a strikingly high number), while “several people failed” would indicate you think it was an easy exam (since the same 30% fail rate feels like a lot to you). So what they refer to is basically the same, but they betray different attitudes in the speaker towards what they modify. | |
| Jul 6, 2015 at 17:30 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | Several and a few are different to me, though they can often be used to describe the same thing. If you are talking about, say, six people or things, both a few and several are perfectly usable; but a few indicates that you don’t really care how many exactly there are, just that there aren’t that many, while several indicates that there are quite a few, at least according to what you might have expected. For example, if ten students take an exam and three people fail, “a few people failed” would, to me, indicate that you think the exam was difficult (since you don’t consider → | |
| Jun 5, 2014 at 15:03 | comment | added | Casey | Personally, I've always thought of "few," "several," and "couple" as interchangeable and used them that way. | |
| Aug 31, 2010 at 1:12 | comment | added | ShreevatsaR | Er, yes. For me, "a couple" < "a few" < "several" < "many". In fact, I think I've used "several" as a synonym for "many" on at least one occasion! (There's also "multiple", but it feels awkward sometimes.) | |
| Aug 30, 2010 at 23:13 | history | answered | nohat | CC BY-SA 2.5 |