In the light of all these HN comments, it is obvious that "couple" is not a helpful word, sowing discord even among native speakers, so I'll just keep avoiding

In the light of all these HN comments, it is obvious that "couple" is not a helpful word, sowing discord even among native speakers, so I'll just keep avoiding it and just use: - "two" to mean "two" (duh!) - "a few" for "a small number of but not one" / "two or more but not many" - "few" or "not many" for "not many" - "several" for the less specific "two or more, many or not". I'll probably avoid saying "several" for "two" if I can help it though, because I know it might confuse or even annoy some people. It might help me avoid a couple of annoying issues.