What is the proper way to use the terms “a couple” or “a few”?
How should one use these words to avoid confusion? How do people use these words in practice.
It was striking to hear that “a couple” meant two (2) to someone. My reaction was, “how/why do you make a short word longer by adding an extra syllable to just say ‘two?’”
A couple is usually two (a married couple), or sometimes 'about two' if you are being vague (a couple of dozen, a couple of inches). A few is more than a couple, but not as many as several.
I think Few: 2-3, Couple 4-6, Several 7+. What are your thoughts?
Definitely not. Couple is certainly fewer than few.
Pair: Two which go together, a matching couple.
Couple: Often used with roughly the same definition as pair, with some specific idioms, such as the happy couple (newlyweds). Sometimes used just to mean two, any two, not necessarily a pair. Sometimes, informally, used to mean few.
Few: A smallish group. There were a few washers in the bottom of the screw drawer.
Very few: A small number, smaller than expected. More than two, though.
Few enough: A small group, probably but not necessarily smaller than expected. Still more than two. "So was it a big crowd?" "Nah, there were few enough of us."
Quite a few: Several, more than expected. There were quite a few people at the party. It was a fair[-sized] crowd.
Several: A large number, but not necessarily larger than expected.
I'd rarely use the word few on its own. It would almost always be very few or quite a few.
For what it's worth, I'm Irish, with English parents, and listen to more BBC Radio 4 than anything else.
We discussed this in a linguistics course I took in college. I was astonished to learn that some people distinguish "several" and "a few". My professor was astonished that some people would think they were the same.
For some people, "a few" and "several" are synonymous, with neither one meaning more than the other, but for others, "several" is more than "a few". Both "a few" and "several" are more than "a couple", which means two or about two.
I've never encountered anybody who thinks that "couple" doesn't even begin until 4! The word literally means 2, though there are many people (myself included) who accept a little ambiguity. If you say "I'll call you back in a couple days" and you call tomorrow, or in three days, I won't be angry.
To add to the already excellent qualitative answers, one can do a quantitative analysis, asking people a number that one might apply to each. Such an experiment has been done:
(note the sparsely labeled and logarithmic x-axis: 10^0 = 1, 10^1 = 10, 10^2 = 100, so 2 and 3 are between 10^0 and 10^1)
There are several (or is it 'a few'?) caveats:
But the numbers aren't too terribly different from native introspection given by the other qualitative questions.
A note about quantification. The explicit denotations and connotations of words are only attempts by our self-conscious linguistic selves to reflect on our unconscious linguistic behavior (we are fluent and natural in using language but using language to describe language use and thought is a difficult and complicated skill. Humans have been speaking for tens of thousands of years but only in the past few thousand have we developed a good way of discussing numbers (using digits and arithmetic).
The vague terms do not necessarily map directly onto a total/linear order. 'A few' and 'some' may apply to roughly the same numerical value but only when shoe-horned into a linear scale. The meanings of those words are much more complex. 'A couple' is literally 'two' but is often used equivocally for nearby values, and may have many dimensions of nuance: intentionally vague, intentionally exact, strictly more than one, strictly two or less, two people who are romantically involved with a sense of permanence, and many others. And 'couple' is the least vague of these.
This is all to say that quantification can oversimplify the breadth of meaning of a word.
These words only add value to English because they are vague; if that were not the case, English would need only the cardinals to represent quantities.
A vague term, by definition, has no discrete boundary between itself and its coordinate term (its semantic neighbour). The gradated boundaries of vague terms make them uniquely efficient: Consider that a vague term conveys more information than a range of values conveys. Where a range represents a series of values, a vague term represents a set of continual (non-discrete) values; the greater the difference between the most prototypical value in the set and any other value in the set, the less prototypical that value will be. For example, a subject is conceived to be less 'bald', the less his scalp resembles Patrick Stewart's scalp.
Precisely representing a vague term requires many more words or much more notation than defining a range requires. So vague terms are semantically economical.
In short, I think it's best to conceive terms such as 'several', 'couple', and 'few' to be overlapping value-ranges with no discrete boundary between any two of them.
I always think of a couple as two. Few is three or more.
Think of couple in other contexts. Relationships, for example. We call two lovers a couple. We call three a party.
Couple is used to mean an indefinite small number in informal sentences, while few means a small number of.
Michael hoped Angie would be better in a couple of days.
We got some eggs. Would you like a couple?
I will recount a few of the stories told me.
Many believe it but only a few are prepared to say.
Oxford defines 'couple' as
two individuals of the same sort considered together
The first three definitions for 'couple' in Merriam-Webster also refer to two of something. The fourth definition they offer, is the 'few' definition.
The informal usage of 'couple' to mean 'few' is something that I consider to be incorrect, although I've no real basis for that belief. I'd be very interested in the history of the word, and whether this latter meaning is something that has arisen lately, or something that has historical rooting.
brace: Two, captured.
several: More than one, separate.
I have used a couple to mean two or three, several to mean 3+ and few to mean -3 or any number that emphasizes something smaller than expected. "There were only a few people" can easily mean twenty when a hundred were expected.
Couple means 2; few means 3, and several means "four or more."
