Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 00:08:44 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> To: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> Cc: wilko@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: www/en index.xsl Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1040216000804.63057D-100000@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <200402160338.10575.wes@softweyr.com>
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On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Wes Peters wrote: > > : "A couple" is numerically equivalent to "a pair". > > > > A couple isn't quite the same as a pair. A secondary meaning for a > > couple is the same as a few. "Give me a couple of those biscuits" is > > likely to get you 3 biscuits as 2 in many parts of the US. > > Funny, I've lived just about everywhere in the US (except Texas) and "a > couple" has always meant two. "A few" would be 2 to 5, several would be > 4 or 5 to maybe a dozen, etc., all the way up to "buttload" which is > rougly "more than a man can carry." > > 2 or more seems to be what we really want here. A parenthetical "X > floppies for i386 as of this writing" will help the reader to grasp the > scale at some ill-specified point in time. When I say "Hold on, I'll be there in a couple of minutes", I hardly ever mean two, and that seems to apply to a lot of people I know also :-). Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects robert@fledge.watson.org Senior Research Scientist, McAfee Research
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