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That sounds more like "a couple". Personally I think "a few" would be anywhere from 3-9, which is more reasonable, if still handily above the median national in

That sounds more like "a couple". Personally I think "a few" would be anywhere from 3-9, which is more reasonable, if still handily above the median national income (like 250k a year if you save and invest well).

_carbyau_ 1y ago
Definitions are surprisingly varied. I see these words as being something to be cautious about. For me: couple(formal) = 2 couple(informal) = 2-3 few = 3-5 half-dozen = 6 [gap] ten-or-so = 9-11 dozen(formal) = 12 dozen-ish(informal) = 11-14 And don't get me started on "this Friday" vs "next Friday"...
- tobinfekkes 1y ago
  My wife and I just discovered that we have different beliefs about "this Friday" vs. "Next Friday". I never even knew there was another possibility, so it's cool to see this mentioned here so soon after.
  - Daneel_ 1y ago
    "This Friday" is the one during the current week, provided it's currently earlier than Friday. If it's Saturday/Sunday already and I want to talk about the Friday that's only 5 days away I would say "this coming Friday" (or just "Friday"). "Next Friday" is always a week+ away. If it's Tuesday and I say "next Friday", I ALWAYS mean the day 10 days away. If someone says "next Friday" to me and they mean the one in a few days I'll look at them like they're crazy.
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      What if they say “Friday week”?
      - Daneel_ 1y ago
        That always means "two Fridays from now" - so if it's Tuesday, then they mean next Friday. I use "<day> week" in conversation, but I'd say it's falling out of favour. I mostly use it with my parents.
        aspenmayer 1y ago
        What if the person saying that means “Friday this week” sometimes and “Friday next week” other times? How can you know that they don’t from an isolated utterance? Can you know with reasonable certainty that the person saying it knows what you think they mean? From context you might know if it seems like they know how to use the phrase, but I always struggle to understand these quirks, perhaps because I heard these terms as an adult and haven’t used them much myself, or been exposed to them and the context enough to immerse myself in the colloquial usage by diffusion. This is close to weird constructions like “x is deceptively y” like “the dog is deceptively large” which, without already knowing the size of the dog, makes me feel like a dunce because I don’t know while not giving me enough specificity to know if the the largeness is what is deceptive or just the perception of the largeness. It’s a syntactical tarpit. > I use "<day> week" in conversation, but I'd say it's falling out of favour. I mostly use it with my parents. I am a native English (US) speaker, and I think it’s a British English thing perhaps, as I heard it all the time in Australia, along with other week-related terms like fortnight.
        d1sxeyes 1y ago
        > What if the person saying that means “Friday this week” sometimes and “Friday next week” other times? Well, I suppose they could, but then what if they meant Thursday? “Friday week” is surprisingly unambiguous. It always means “count forward from today until a Friday, then add a week”. Its partner is “Friday coming”, which is “count forward until a Friday”.
        aspenmayer 1y ago
        > > What if the person saying that means “Friday this week” sometimes and “Friday next week” other times? > Well, I suppose they could, but then what if they meant Thursday? > “Friday week” is surprisingly unambiguous. It always means “count forward from today until a Friday, then add a week”. Its partner is “Friday coming”, which is “count forward until a Friday”. That’s good that it’s unambiguous to you, as you happen to be correctly interpreting the meaning from the words as written, but I don’t read the context the same way, as in, your reading doesn’t always read as written, when I’m doing the reading. It comes naturally to you, it seems, but less so to me, if I can explain. To me, “Friday coming/this coming Friday” is just as underspecified because it communicates explicitly ambiguously that which is definitively known due to unknown knowns and/or unknown unknowns: you don’t know if I know what day it is today or not, and on days I haven’t been outside yet, I may not know if it’s AM/PM or midnight or noon. I could think I know what day it is and be honestly mistaken, leading me to believe that the next/coming Friday is a day away, as in tomorrow, but miss that it’s already Friday today, making the listener think I mean a week from now, when I mean right now for events taking place on the night of the day in question. I also think it’s ambiguous what “coming/next Friday” means, because it’s obvious that the one coming up this week is coming up, so it seems too on the nose to refer to it as such, which makes me think that it’s a week from now, but this time, they actually do mean the Friday a few days from now.
    - zippyman55 1y ago
      This next Friday, I’ll be next to my girl Friday.
  - alanbernstein 1y ago
    https://oxtweekend.com/ https://oxtweekend.com/
  - RajT88 1y ago
    My wife and I have a disagreement about "the other day". I use it to mean, a time up to two years ago. She uses it to mean up to no more than a month. I think the disagreement is because I have a better memory - two years ago does not feel so distant to me. It is a silly and fun thing to argue about, leading to some agreements on terminology: A while ago - 2- 10 years Back in the day - 10+ years ago And just to troll her, I boldly make the claim, "just now" means any time between now and a week ago.
    - Zobat 1y ago
      I'd claim that the time ranges for these depend on what we're talking about. "I had a sandwich a while ago" is wastly different from "they had a child a while ago". "The other day" and "back in the day" might not differ as much but still...
    - _carbyau_ 1y ago
      Oh no, a whole new bunch of time-wimey words I hadn't even considered! :-) I'm no authority but to me using "the other day" as a phrase is trying to impart a rough reference to a point in time. Which means we're talking in "day" timeframes where week or month wouldn't be suitable. I would expect "the other day" to be within a week, but accept no more than a month. Similarly "some months ago" = probably less than 6 months but definitely no more than a year. The world is a wonderful place and the ways we humans can confuse communication seemingly knows no bounds. But I don't want a proscriptive definition for each little casual phrase as I think this flexibility in language is why it keeps changing and being alive!
- williamscales 1y ago
  I like the definition of several as “more than two but fewer than many”
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    “How many times more (than two)?” “Several..?”
- Daneel_ 1y ago
  don't forget: several = 5-10 handful = 10-20 Personally, after having worked in a hardware store, I always confirm. "grab me a couple of those please" - "is two enough, or do you need a few extra?" I'm one of those people for whom a couple is 3-5, but never 2. I would just say "two".
  - goopypoop 1y ago
    I'd like a handful of bowling balls, please.
    - Daneel_ 1y ago
      I mean, sure. That doesn't necessarily seem like a weird statement to me. It's more than several, but still a manageable number.
      - goopypoop 1y ago
        Great! In that case I'll take two handfuls of bowling balls and several wheelbarrows. Maybe I should get a couple (4) more wheelbarrows to be safe, bring it down to under 4 balls per barrow
        Daneel_ 1y ago
        If you're trying to provoke a "wait, that's not what I meant" response with that sarcasm, you won't get it :) Use depends on context, like all language, and deliberately choosing a situation that doesn't suit the language will obviously result in confusion.
        goopypoop 1y ago
        I'm just really enjoying the absurd scenario we've created
  - onionisafruit 1y ago
    Handful is 5 unless you are talking about something that can physically fit in your hand ( in that case it’s however much can fit in your hand ).
- dawatchusay 1y ago
  Where does “several” fall on your spectrum?
  - jamwil 1y ago
    Several is the gap
    - barbs 1y ago
      Took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that "several" didn't mean "about seven"
      - iechoz6H 1y ago
        In most contexts that wouldn't be a terrible translation.
      - rkaid 1y ago
        There was a contestant on a recent season of Survivor who, iirc, gave up on a challenge because the host said it would take "several hours" to finish. Later the contestant explained that "last I checked several means seven", and about an hour into the challenge he realized he wouldn't last for seven hours, so he quit.. (When the host said "several hours" I believe he meant about 4 hours) This of course led to much ridicule and many memes in the fandom, and Survivor even titled the seventh episode of that season "Episode Several". In post-season interviews the contestant is still adamant that several means seven.
      - ta8903 1y ago
        As a kid I always thought "few" was ~5 and "several" was ~7.
  - _carbyau_ 1y ago
    Not that I'm any authority but I'd use "several" interchangeably with "few". The sibling comment suggestion of using it in the [gap] does make sense though...
- MegaDeKay 1y ago
  How about when a recipe tells you to let something soak / marinate / rise / whatever "overnight". When really should I start? When really does it end? Is 8am one day to 4pm the next day (32h) the same as 9pm one day to 7am the next day (10h)?
  - jjcob 1y ago
    I think for a lot of things it doesn't matter, so either 10h or 32h are okay (eg. soaking beans, marinating meat). If it says overnight I assume the time doesn't really matter that much.
    - sebastiennight 1y ago
      Unless you're marinating your meat with pineapple, in which case it can end badly... The day I learned that the acidic feel of pineapples comes from it actually digesting you instead of the opposite is the day I stopped using them.
      - darkwater 1y ago
        > The day I learned that the acidic feel of pineapples comes from it actually digesting you instead of the opposite is the day I stopped using them. Wait, what?
        maxerickson 1y ago
        News to me too. Pineapple contains an enzyme that breaks down proteins: https://www.thespruceeats.com/flesh-eating-enzymes-of-pineapple-and-papaya-4047013 https://www.thespruceeats.com/flesh-eating-enzymes-of-pineap...
      - jjcob 1y ago
        Yeah, I use pear to marinate thinly sliced beef (my variant of bulgogi). I wouldn't let that marinate overnight either. An hour or so is enough. Too much pear for too long and the meat becomes so soft it almost falls apart.
- dr_dshiv 1y ago
  “I’m going to be a few minutes late” Riiight
- starsep 1y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1070/ https://xkcd.com/1070/
- smcl 1y ago
  "this Friday" vs "next Friday" should be unambiguous except some people abuse "next Friday" and cause problems.
- dripdry45 1y ago
  Several or handful would be 7-11 in my book

_carbyau_ 1y ago

Definitions are surprisingly varied. I see these words as being something to be cautious about. For me: couple(formal) = 2 couple(informal) = 2-3 few = 3-5 half-dozen = 6 [gap] ten-or-so = 9-11 dozen(formal) = 12 dozen-ish(informal) = 11-14 And don't get me started on "this Friday" vs "next Friday"...

tobinfekkes 1y ago
My wife and I just discovered that we have different beliefs about "this Friday" vs. "Next Friday". I never even knew there was another possibility, so it's cool to see this mentioned here so soon after.
- Daneel_ 1y ago
  "This Friday" is the one during the current week, provided it's currently earlier than Friday. If it's Saturday/Sunday already and I want to talk about the Friday that's only 5 days away I would say "this coming Friday" (or just "Friday"). "Next Friday" is always a week+ away. If it's Tuesday and I say "next Friday", I ALWAYS mean the day 10 days away. If someone says "next Friday" to me and they mean the one in a few days I'll look at them like they're crazy.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    What if they say “Friday week”?
    - Daneel_ 1y ago
      That always means "two Fridays from now" - so if it's Tuesday, then they mean next Friday. I use "<day> week" in conversation, but I'd say it's falling out of favour. I mostly use it with my parents.
      - aspenmayer 1y ago
        What if the person saying that means “Friday this week” sometimes and “Friday next week” other times? How can you know that they don’t from an isolated utterance? Can you know with reasonable certainty that the person saying it knows what you think they mean? From context you might know if it seems like they know how to use the phrase, but I always struggle to understand these quirks, perhaps because I heard these terms as an adult and haven’t used them much myself, or been exposed to them and the context enough to immerse myself in the colloquial usage by diffusion. This is close to weird constructions like “x is deceptively y” like “the dog is deceptively large” which, without already knowing the size of the dog, makes me feel like a dunce because I don’t know while not giving me enough specificity to know if the the largeness is what is deceptive or just the perception of the largeness. It’s a syntactical tarpit. > I use "<day> week" in conversation, but I'd say it's falling out of favour. I mostly use it with my parents. I am a native English (US) speaker, and I think it’s a British English thing perhaps, as I heard it all the time in Australia, along with other week-related terms like fortnight.
        d1sxeyes 1y ago
        > What if the person saying that means “Friday this week” sometimes and “Friday next week” other times? Well, I suppose they could, but then what if they meant Thursday? “Friday week” is surprisingly unambiguous. It always means “count forward from today until a Friday, then add a week”. Its partner is “Friday coming”, which is “count forward until a Friday”.
        aspenmayer 1y ago
        > > What if the person saying that means “Friday this week” sometimes and “Friday next week” other times? > Well, I suppose they could, but then what if they meant Thursday? > “Friday week” is surprisingly unambiguous. It always means “count forward from today until a Friday, then add a week”. Its partner is “Friday coming”, which is “count forward until a Friday”. That’s good that it’s unambiguous to you, as you happen to be correctly interpreting the meaning from the words as written, but I don’t read the context the same way, as in, your reading doesn’t always read as written, when I’m doing the reading. It comes naturally to you, it seems, but less so to me, if I can explain. To me, “Friday coming/this coming Friday” is just as underspecified because it communicates explicitly ambiguously that which is definitively known due to unknown knowns and/or unknown unknowns: you don’t know if I know what day it is today or not, and on days I haven’t been outside yet, I may not know if it’s AM/PM or midnight or noon. I could think I know what day it is and be honestly mistaken, leading me to believe that the next/coming Friday is a day away, as in tomorrow, but miss that it’s already Friday today, making the listener think I mean a week from now, when I mean right now for events taking place on the night of the day in question. I also think it’s ambiguous what “coming/next Friday” means, because it’s obvious that the one coming up this week is coming up, so it seems too on the nose to refer to it as such, which makes me think that it’s a week from now, but this time, they actually do mean the Friday a few days from now.
  - zippyman55 1y ago
    This next Friday, I’ll be next to my girl Friday.
- alanbernstein 1y ago
  https://oxtweekend.com/ https://oxtweekend.com/
- RajT88 1y ago
  My wife and I have a disagreement about "the other day". I use it to mean, a time up to two years ago. She uses it to mean up to no more than a month. I think the disagreement is because I have a better memory - two years ago does not feel so distant to me. It is a silly and fun thing to argue about, leading to some agreements on terminology: A while ago - 2- 10 years Back in the day - 10+ years ago And just to troll her, I boldly make the claim, "just now" means any time between now and a week ago.
  - Zobat 1y ago
    I'd claim that the time ranges for these depend on what we're talking about. "I had a sandwich a while ago" is wastly different from "they had a child a while ago". "The other day" and "back in the day" might not differ as much but still...
  - _carbyau_ 1y ago
    Oh no, a whole new bunch of time-wimey words I hadn't even considered! :-) I'm no authority but to me using "the other day" as a phrase is trying to impart a rough reference to a point in time. Which means we're talking in "day" timeframes where week or month wouldn't be suitable. I would expect "the other day" to be within a week, but accept no more than a month. Similarly "some months ago" = probably less than 6 months but definitely no more than a year. The world is a wonderful place and the ways we humans can confuse communication seemingly knows no bounds. But I don't want a proscriptive definition for each little casual phrase as I think this flexibility in language is why it keeps changing and being alive!
williamscales 1y ago
I like the definition of several as “more than two but fewer than many”
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  “How many times more (than two)?” “Several..?”
Daneel_ 1y ago
don't forget: several = 5-10 handful = 10-20 Personally, after having worked in a hardware store, I always confirm. "grab me a couple of those please" - "is two enough, or do you need a few extra?" I'm one of those people for whom a couple is 3-5, but never 2. I would just say "two".
- goopypoop 1y ago
  I'd like a handful of bowling balls, please.
  - Daneel_ 1y ago
    I mean, sure. That doesn't necessarily seem like a weird statement to me. It's more than several, but still a manageable number.
    - goopypoop 1y ago
      Great! In that case I'll take two handfuls of bowling balls and several wheelbarrows. Maybe I should get a couple (4) more wheelbarrows to be safe, bring it down to under 4 balls per barrow
      - Daneel_ 1y ago
        If you're trying to provoke a "wait, that's not what I meant" response with that sarcasm, you won't get it :) Use depends on context, like all language, and deliberately choosing a situation that doesn't suit the language will obviously result in confusion.
        goopypoop 1y ago
        I'm just really enjoying the absurd scenario we've created
- onionisafruit 1y ago
  Handful is 5 unless you are talking about something that can physically fit in your hand ( in that case it’s however much can fit in your hand ).
dawatchusay 1y ago
Where does “several” fall on your spectrum?
- jamwil 1y ago
  Several is the gap
  - barbs 1y ago
    Took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that "several" didn't mean "about seven"
    - iechoz6H 1y ago
      In most contexts that wouldn't be a terrible translation.
    - rkaid 1y ago
      There was a contestant on a recent season of Survivor who, iirc, gave up on a challenge because the host said it would take "several hours" to finish. Later the contestant explained that "last I checked several means seven", and about an hour into the challenge he realized he wouldn't last for seven hours, so he quit.. (When the host said "several hours" I believe he meant about 4 hours) This of course led to much ridicule and many memes in the fandom, and Survivor even titled the seventh episode of that season "Episode Several". In post-season interviews the contestant is still adamant that several means seven.
    - ta8903 1y ago
      As a kid I always thought "few" was ~5 and "several" was ~7.
- _carbyau_ 1y ago
  Not that I'm any authority but I'd use "several" interchangeably with "few". The sibling comment suggestion of using it in the [gap] does make sense though...
MegaDeKay 1y ago
How about when a recipe tells you to let something soak / marinate / rise / whatever "overnight". When really should I start? When really does it end? Is 8am one day to 4pm the next day (32h) the same as 9pm one day to 7am the next day (10h)?
- jjcob 1y ago
  I think for a lot of things it doesn't matter, so either 10h or 32h are okay (eg. soaking beans, marinating meat). If it says overnight I assume the time doesn't really matter that much.
  - sebastiennight 1y ago
    Unless you're marinating your meat with pineapple, in which case it can end badly... The day I learned that the acidic feel of pineapples comes from it actually digesting you instead of the opposite is the day I stopped using them.
    - darkwater 1y ago
      > The day I learned that the acidic feel of pineapples comes from it actually digesting you instead of the opposite is the day I stopped using them. Wait, what?
      - maxerickson 1y ago
        News to me too. Pineapple contains an enzyme that breaks down proteins: https://www.thespruceeats.com/flesh-eating-enzymes-of-pineapple-and-papaya-4047013 https://www.thespruceeats.com/flesh-eating-enzymes-of-pineap...
    - jjcob 1y ago
      Yeah, I use pear to marinate thinly sliced beef (my variant of bulgogi). I wouldn't let that marinate overnight either. An hour or so is enough. Too much pear for too long and the meat becomes so soft it almost falls apart.
dr_dshiv 1y ago
“I’m going to be a few minutes late” Riiight
starsep 1y ago
https://xkcd.com/1070/ https://xkcd.com/1070/
smcl 1y ago
"this Friday" vs "next Friday" should be unambiguous except some people abuse "next Friday" and cause problems.
dripdry45 1y ago
Several or handful would be 7-11 in my book