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

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.