Numbers

[gilana]

What range of numbers can be encompassed by:

• a couple?
• a few?
• several?

Any other relative quantity terms that you feel have a fairly narrow scope?  (And is a metric buttload more or less than an imperial buttload?)

Comments

[muffyjo]

A couple = 2
a few = 2-3
several >3 and <7

Metric buttload v Imperial buttload = II think the conversion rate may be similar to the exchange rate in that it fluctuates daily with market demands.

[ron_newman]

A couple -- 2 exactly, no more.
A few - up to about 7
Several - same as a few

[dpolicar]

A "couple" is 2, and a "few" is 3.
"Several" is more context-dependent... more than 2, fewer than 20, but the upper range really depends. "Losing several teeth" suggests 5 or 6 at most. Ditto for "bunch".

[valadil.livejournal.com]

Few = 1-4
Couple = 2
Several = 5-9

[minkrose]

Andy and I have spirited and ongoing discussions about this. "Several" can be as few as two - FOR HIM. It confuses me terribly.

For me, a couple is two, occassionally three. Then you have a few, which is about three to five, then many which is More and then several, which is Lots. It does depend what you're talking about but my order always goes couple, few, many/several.


Metric buttload would be less. 50 grams is about 2 ounces - you need more metric things to get an English thing, generally.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

a couple is (are?) two.
a few depends somewhat on what the objects are. A few grapefruit can be as few as two or as many as four. A few grapes can be as few as three or as many as a bunch if you're feeding more than a few people. ;)
I think a few and several are synonymous in my mind, with the slight exception that several has the connotation of separation, so I'm more like to say "a few" if I'm talking about things that are identical or interchangeable, and more likely to use several if I'm talking about apples and oranges, so to speak.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

"A couple" -- two. But, figuratively, may be used for numbers from 2 to 4.

"A few" -- three to six.

"Several" -- three to eight.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The bizzare thing is how close people's numbers seem to be.

[kalliejenn2.livejournal.com]

hmm...
for me, they are as follows:

a couple : 2
a few: 2-3
several: more than 3

[taiganwolf.livejournal.com]

My replies don't differ much from anyone else's. You could also ask how many are "a handful."

The real question is when you get into non-countable quantities. How much is a "smidge?" How far is "a good ways?" How long is "for a while?"

[xthread.livejournal.com]

a couple is strictly two, except when it's three.
several is more than two but usually less than few.
a few is fewer than ten, unless ten seems really large, in which case it's fewer than seven, but more than a couple, and usually more than several.

Actually, I don't think of the key difference as being how many are being referred to, but precision - couple is more certainly two than several is less than seven but more than three, which is more certain than few is more than three but fewer than seven.

Did that make sense?

It's all about the PRECISION, baby

[awhyzip.livejournal.com]

To me, the point of these pseudonumeric words is that they are approximate.

If I *knew* there are exactly two things, I could say "two". Whereas, a "couple of things" means a "fuzzy" two. It might be two, it might be three, and the distinction's not important enough for me to force an exact count --- and I don't want to pretend more accuracy than I have.

I think of "a couple" as a distribution curve centered on 2. It's not a normal distribution; 3 is much more likely than 1. In rare cases, "a couple" might be able to cover as many as 4 items... because it's a distribution. But if the "couple" is getting that off-center, I should probably up my estimate to the next pseudonumber: a few.

Re: It's all about the PRECISION, baby

[awhyzip.livejournal.com]

1 is an unlikely value for a "couple" just because I am more likely to KNOW when a small value is exactly 1. This is not because of the meaning of "a couple", but rather because there are more processes which can apply to reduce my uncertainty at that quantity.

For me "a few" is also an approximate number. I can't believe in a hard dividing line between "few" and "couple" because a sharp lower bound is antithetical to the whole concept for me!

"Several" is also an approximate number, but like 42itous posted, it has a connotation of "distinctness" between the range of elements. That connotation is totally absent for me in the "a few", even if they might both easily apply to the same *number* of items.

pseudonumbers vs number synonyms.

[awhyzip.livejournal.com]

I would point out that "a pair" always means exactly 2 to me.