This is why America is doomed.

Couple = two

Few = three

These are things I have known since I was about nine or so, but which still elude even my more intelligent friends.

"I'll take a couple" says one friend to me, as I hand him two bottles of beer. And then he looks at me, and asks for two more.

Well I would be confused too if John dropped "of" instead of "off".

:-)

Few = three --- Few has three letters

Some = four --- Some has for letters

I came up with this brilliant idea* when I was in elementary school.  It has been a part of me ever since.

*Yes, I know that 'some' is not quantity specific.

I can understand the frustration with bad language. Really.  Though in informal usage "a couple" can mean more than two, but not by much.  It strikes me as simply a case of somebody jumping past the formal, precise meaning ("two")  to the informal, vague ("two or maybe a little bit more").  It's sort of like hearing hoofbeats and thinking "Zebras".

I find that as a rule if someone says " a couple" and you presume that they mean "two", they actually mean "3 or 4" whereas if you presume that they mean "3 or 4" they probably mean "two".

For all we know, a customer may have come up to the same clerk shortly before, asked for "a couple" of prescriptions and gotten angry because the clerk returned with only 2 of his three prescriptions.  Its not easy being in the service industry.

"But a "couple" is two.  Why would anyone think it is more than two?"

Beats me. But it's been that used that way "informally" or "colloquially" in most if not all Germanic languages for, I think, centuries.

 I know that in my language (Norwegian) it's listed as common usage. Quite frankly, in my country if someone argued that one couldn't use "a couple" ("eit par") to describe a quantity of 3 or 4 we'd think they were a bit thick.

That being said, it is obviously not as widely accepted in English, treated I suppose as a mere linguistic aberration like the double negative.

Vive la difference, eh?