Hard to quantify

Reader "Sacky Kevin" sent me a thoroughly entertaining email after a few beers on Friday night. Amongst other things, he said that when I worked with him for almost a year, we discussed the "How much is a shitload?" topic about five times. That doesn't surprise me in the slightest, and it reminded me of a similar conversation Dusty and I had years ago.

We talk about stupid things often. Let me clarify: stupid, trivial things to most people that we happen to find interesting. So one day, it came to my attention that I regularly did something that seemed contradictory to my very being. I would use "a couple" when talking about more than two things. By definition, "a couple" should just be two, yet I'd find myself saying that "I might have a couple of friends come over for the game" when it would probably be three.

By now, you probably know that I care about accuracy in somewhat trivial things. Dusty cares too, so he was the perfect person for me to discuss this issue with. (I'm sorry, I couldn't bring myself to type "with whom to discuss the issue." I know it's right, but it just sounds so haughty. I have selective grammar, so hopefully that's ok with you.) Here's a brief side story that should illustrate how Dusty thinks:

About a decade ago, we were walking around a little village of shops. One of them was a magic shop, and we started looking around. Dusty pointed to a rubber hand for use in tricks or pranks that was for sale. On the bag, it said, "So lifelike, it's incredible!" He turned to me and said, "I think they mean, 'So lifelike, it's credible!'" He was so right. Anyway, we sometimes look at things in the same way.

I told him about my incorrect use of "a couple," and he understood why I was perturbed. This led to a discussion of how much "a few" is. Could two be a few, or did "a few" have to exceed "a couple" to make sense? What about "several?" Here was my initial stance:

A = one

A couple = two

A few = three to five

Quite a few = four to seven

Several = five or more, until it becomes "many" or "lots"

I purposely had them overlap a little, before any of you fellow smart-asses point that out. This scale didn't sit well with everyone, and I wasn't sold on it myself. One friend (I believe it was Greg) stated that "several" could be as little as three to him. Even though I thought that was crazy talk, I was beginning to see that it was going to be very difficult to nail down those definitions. In the end, we decided that it was largely situational. My initial scale would still be accurate in many cases. For example, if a room has three beanbag chairs in it, I'd say there are a few. Once there are five or more in there, I'd refer to the several chairs.

Here are two examples of where my definitions don't fit: First, if there are five ants crawling across the kitchen floor, I would never say "several" in that case. There would be "a few ants" or even the incorrect "a couple." Same goes with chocolate sprinkles on a sundae. If I asked for sprinkles and there were only five of them on there, I doubt I'd use "several." "Hardly any, you cheap bastards" is probably the term I would use.

Second, if I met someone with three arms, I might say that he had "several arms," even though it flies in the face of my previous definitions. "Quite a few" would probably still work there. Could "several" ever be two? What about noses? Maybe, maybe. Tough call.

I consulted the dictionary to see if it would give me any definitive answers, and I was far from successful. What does Merriam-Webster say “a couple” is? After definitions about two people being together, it says “an indefinite small number : FEW.” I thought that would be the easy one that we could all agree on, but apparently M-W would rather leave “a couple” as an undefined number…even though they already defined it as two in previous definitions. Bastards.

The definition for “few” wasn’t helpful either: “not many persons or things.” I understand it’s hard to put a number on that, but the definition for “couple” listed “few” as a synonym, and I wouldn’t say that “not many persons or things” works for “couple” too. Then I got to what they did with “several,” and it pisses me off. I’m serious, it makes me angry. Here are definitions 2a and 2b from Merriam-Webster: “more than one” and “more than two but fewer than many.” Are you fucking kidding me? I just started to type everything that bugs me about those two definitions, but I had to stop because it was all in caps and I didn’t want you to feel like I was screaming at you. Simply, those definitions are full of shit. Whether “several” is fewer than “many” can be debated since they’re vague terms, but you simply can’t assign specific numbers if you’re going to contradict yourself three words later. Breathe in, hold it, and out. Ah.

Happy Monday, folks. I hope you have a shitload of good times this week.