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I am on the wife's side here. I was in the US and someone corrected me when I said I had a couple of something and they said "Actually, you've got three" or so
by mattlondon 3y ago
I am on the wife's side here.
I was in the US and someone corrected me when I said I had a couple of something and they said "Actually, you've got three" or something "That's what I said" "You said a couple" "..."
It had never occurred to me that people mistakenly thought couple meant exactly 2 - how weird.
- satvikpendem 3y agoMistakenly? Couple literally means two, as in, the people there look like a nice couple.
- eyelidlessness 3y agoCouple also literally (figuratively) means some small plural number, because a couple people (at least a few, several… many even) use it that way. It’s an understandable mistake in understanding, as the word has a couple meanings.
- satvikpendem 3y agoFortunately, I'm a prescriptivist, not a descriptivist, at least until it doesn't make sense to be anymore, if the language changes so much in the future. No one is still a prescriptivist for Old English, for example.
- eyelidlessness 3y agoFortunately you’re a descriptivist, unfortunately you’re stubborn about it ;)
- satvikpendem 3y agoHow so? You'd be the descriptivist in this scenario, no?
- stavros 3y agoThe joke is that everyone is a descriptivist, since language changes whether you want to or not. That joke ignores the fact that I will use the language exactly as I learnt it, when it was objectively perfect, and not a moment before or after.
- satvikpendem 3y agoYeah, that's what I was also implying, haha.
- unlikelymordant 3y agoThat is a completely different usage of the word as far as I'm concerned, like confusing nut ( and bolt) with nut (from a tree), in this case 'a couple' like two people in a relationship implies a link, like they are coupled. A couple of apples does not imply any link, it just means some small number.
- satvikpendem 3y agoIt's not a completely different usage, it's literally the same usage, because couple means two. Thus, a couple (of people) means two people, just as a couple of apples means two apples. Being coupled also derives from the original meaning, two being bonded as one object (see also: coupling). These are all variations of the same word, etymologically. In contrast, nut from a car versus nut from a tree are wholly different both in meaning.
- unlikelymordant 3y agoEtymologically there are 3 and 4 way couplings... latin copula just means 'joined', nothing about 2.
- satvikpendem 3y agoYes, but in the English derivation of the Latin, it explicitly means two.
- mattlondon 3y agoNo - common usage is clearly more than 2. In the context of relationships I completely agree because no one says "They are a two". But when you are in the context of quantity, "a couple" is a quicker way of saying "between 2 and 3/4/5" . There are no "rules" in English, only conventions. It is a product of whoever speaks it and whatever they bring with them, and as such is forever changing and evolving without any control or authority.
- 3y ago