Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Wrong. A couple is two exactly. After the wedding: Oh look at the happy couple. There aren't 3 or 4 people standing there, 2 people are standing there. A couple.
To couple train carriages together means to attach two carriages together. There are more carriages behind that one, but they were all individually coupled together.
Aw come on, those are two very different meanings of the word in my book. As it happens, the couple of eggs I took out of the fridge aren't in a romantic relationship.
Look in any English language dictionary. Show me an entry that states a couple is more than two
I‘ll wait.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/couple-few-several-use
So yeah, the meaning of "at least two but possibly a bit more than that" has been around for a loooooong time.
Starting a post with "Wrong." and listing a few items that support your view is... Well it gives me Reddit energy, not a good thing. ;)
Here are some counterexamples that negate it: "I'll be ready in a couple of minutes", "it's a couple of miles away".
This does not always mean exactly two. I mean, if you just want to yell out "it always means exactly two!" Then that's on you, but in the English language everyone else in the world uses, it often means two, but can also mean around but not exactly two, depending on the use case.
Look in any English language dictionary. Show me an entry that states a couple is more than two.
I‘ll wait.
True. Otherwise we'd have no use for that stupid word 'throuple'. We should call them fews.