My mom's interpretation (midwest and eastcoast US, 80s) is largely related to snacks before dinner. "Can I have a few cookies?" "You can have a couple". This

My mom's interpretation (midwest and eastcoast US, 80s) is largely related to snacks before dinner. "Can I have a few cookies?" "You can have a couple". This meant two. You could sometimes get away with three, but it would result in mild disappointment from my mom, because if she meant three she would have said "you can have a few". In no case did couple mean four. "Can we have some cookies?" "Yes, you can have some cookies" meant four total cookies, split between the siblings, presumably fairly (but she let us battle out that agreement, with everyone getting at least one). This wasn't based solely on how many you had, but how many she expected the cookie jar to be short the next time she looked at it, so you couldn't game it by asking for a few multiple times. "Some" was pretty rare, probably more likely in the early afternoon vs getting closer to dinner time. "Several" was more than four, and was very rare. There was some wiggle room, at least in what you could get away with even if the meaning was absolute, with the cost being a disappointing look and admonishment of "you'll ruin your dinner". Couple is two. Few was three. Some was four. If she said "some" and you took three, you were cheating yourself. Watching a Mad Men clip last night, Draper, Sterling and a client are at a restaurant and Roger handwavingly dismisses the waiter saying "bring us a couple of iceberg wedges" for, presumably, the three of them, and I thought "Who exactly did he order for?"