Talk:1070: Words for Small Sets

I disagree on "A Handful" and "Several". A Handful should be about 4 to 7 and several should be 6 to 8, averaging about 7, which sounds just like several. The other two are within the range that makes sense to me. Also, check out how he sneaks "a couple of friends" and "all three of them" into the image text very sneakily. User:Jeff - From the blog

Dude, that's the point. You've been trolled. --Jimmy C (talk) 11:43, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Several is two or more.

A handful to me is just that. A dozen berries, one hand grenade, 2-3 sticks of TNT, a bird (2 in a bush else where gives 3) or a wild blonde (more than 1 way to be a handful I guess). DruidDriver (talk) 07:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

English isn't my natural language, but how common is the word "acrimonious"? Should it be explained? 108.162.254.56 03:40, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Online dictionaries should help. I'm using some addons to my Firefox to help me. The simplest meaning for "acrimonious" should be "bitter", but this is still one of those words hard to describe. --Dgbrt (talk) 21:56, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm inclined to interpret the hover text as him saying that a couple does mean more than two. A couple of friends, and then all three of them. However, the entry does not agree with me. Thoughts? 173.245.52.28 09:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

My guess is that the entry interpreted "all three of them agree" as "your couple of friends agree with you". I think Randell would sooner troll than use inconsistent grammar so, I also think Randell was using couple to mean 3 friends. Who PhD (talk) 13:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

There is a similar ambiguity in German, where "ein paar", which literally means "a couple", is used to say "a few". In Italian the ambiguity is even stronger, as certain regions tend to use "un paio" only in the literal sense, while others mean it figuratively. A friend of mine came from Tuscany to Sardinia and one day told me: "I asked for a couple of cigarette packs, and the clerk said ok, how many? and I said, a couple, and he answered yes, how many precisely, and I had to say, uh, two? What an idiot". I had to explain to her that where I live it was not THAT straightforward that couple == 2 --108.162.229.31 08:01, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

This question has been settled before. A few = 1—4, several = 5—9, a pack = 10—19, a lot = 20—49, … --141.101.105.192 13:14, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

How much/many is/are a cupfull? I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 19:30, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

[Yoseph] - all those words change based on context, for example: A handful of ants(that would probably reffer to something like 60 ants), but a handfull of crackers(would be like 12 crackers), and a handful of batteries(would be something like 6). and so goes for couple(a couple of cars[thats like 2], but a couple weeks ago[thats like 2-3]). 199.27.133.56 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

"Several" means 4 to 7. A couple means 1, 2, or 3. 173.245.50.140 01:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The answer to the spacing one is, of course, "it depends."173.245.50.174 18:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I have to take the bait. "A few" literally means three, "A couple" literally means two.