For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don’t want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That’s ludicrous!
That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use “less” when they should use “fewer”
Disagree. I’ve always understood it to mean approximately two. Usually 2-3; 4 isn’t outlandish.
Unless that’s the meaning, the expression doesn’t have a reason to exist. So that’s how I decide to interpret it.
The word you’re thinking of is “several”.
Doesn’t that exclude 2?
Looks like there are conflicting definitions. From https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/several
So maybe it’s what you mean lol
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.