Couple is NOT a Number

Increasing, in recent years, I’ve noticed what used to be the phrase ‘couple of’ has been reduced to just the word ‘couple’. Couple is not a number.

But, as it happens, neither is ‘few’ — a word that has long been used standing alone to indicate a number greater than two and smaller than, say, five.

It would appear that, however the ‘couple’ transition started, it has fully integrated itself into current writing. And while I intellectually understand that language evolves, emotionally I sometimes resist change. In that and a few other ways, I am closing in on being as conservative as my friend accuses me of. And that, as the saying goes, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Burp!

Still, I get a brain burp every time I seen ‘couple’ as representing a number of years — less than a few, one might imagine, but more than two.

All this raises the question, of course, ‘what is a “few”’? I’ve always thought — I think I was taught — that a few means three. More than two, less than four.

Does any of this fine-pointing mean anything? To a language purist, a member of which tribe I like to think of myself as a member, it does. But like most everyone else, I really have better things to concern myself with these days. Things such as when will enough of us been covid-vaccinated that we can resume something like the ‘normal’ life we enjoyed (or not!) prior to the winter of 2020… and things such as ‘what’s for dinner?’.

So what, then, is the point of this article? Not much, when you get down to it. I needed to take a break from a mind-numbing task, and the idea of addressing the ‘couple’ issue — and maybe a couple more — popped into my head.

Little more, nothing less.