Some and a group as well as a bunch or many could only be defined in the contest used with a bunch and many considered more. We all know a bubbler and not a fountain is the proper term for the fixture or unit, usually in a public area, you get a drink of water from.
A fountain is a place you throw coins in…. Yes, I live in Wisconsin. In my studies to teach English as a Second Language, we were instructed to explain those terms as: a couple is 2, a few is 3 or 4, several is 5 or 6 and many is more than that.
If you mean 3, 4, 6, 7, etc. The only thing I can say for sure is a couple means two. This is closest to my belief, but I was taught that a couple was 2 or 3, no specifically either. This was because why would you call 2 a couple? I would say if a couple people got knocked down it was 2 and if you meant more than 2 people got knocked down, you are saying the wrong word.
A couple meaning 2 just makes sense. I was taught a few meant 3 or more but not a lot. I heard my Granddaughter tell a story and she said a couple.
She told it again and it was a 3 or 4. I asked how many 2 or more? She said idk a couple. I said a couple is 2, she said well more than two but I am not sure, I said if your sure it was more than 2 but not many use a few. One of the many things I do that makes me realize I have turned into my mother. I just had a discussion about this and after looking up what those words really mean I was confused. My thought all these long years is that 2 is a couple, a few is 3 and several meant 7 or more it seemed to me the first 4 letters seve gave it away.
Everything else was a specific number. A number a large number! It was very tongue-in-cheek, but I have been unable to locate it or any mention of it in recent years. It had entries like the ones in this thread, but also things like Many, Most, All represented as varying percentages , etc. I wish I could resurrect it from wherever it went! My husband wanted to be a diver in USN. The dictionary defines Several as more than two but not many.
Several, few, handful, bunch and some. To a twenty-year-old, a few years would be about 3. To an eighty-year-old, a few years could be 20 or more…. Click to see full answer…. A few puts a little more attention on the positive—that there is a small number of people or things. If your relationship with your manager is very formal, then this is appropriate. Or to put it more cynically: the sentence boils down to this. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.
Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Arts How many times does several mean? Ben Davis March 21, How many times does several mean? What quantity is several? Is 4 a few or several? What qualifies as several? How many is several months? How many is a few and several? Is many more than several? How many is several days? They be but one heire, and yet severall persons. By the s, however, several had come to refer to an indefinite number that was not large:.
The current having forc'd the Ship upon the shore, where we were constrained to stay for several hours. Several young Men at the Universities, terribly possessed with the fear of Pedantry, run into a worse Extream. The many meaning is now primarily a dialectal use, fortunately. In use, the connotation of several is that it represents more than a few.
We have one helpful citation in our files, sent there by a science editor:. When he looked at the planet Jupiter, Galileo found that it was accompanied by several small satellites or moons that orbited around it. Hawking, A Brief History of Time , Verdict: in common use, several is often more than a couple and a few , though it is sometimes the same as both and occasionally more than a few. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!
Log in Sign Up. What to Know Couple is used when referring to two things, as in "a couple of days ago," whereas few and several are less specific. More Words At Play. Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Oct.
0コメント