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A comment on 'Couple,' 'Few,' and 'Several': The (Mostly) Definitive Guide. Parent comment

Re:'Couple,' 'Few,' and 'Several': The (Mostly) Definitive G... by eyelidlessness on Sunday October 01, 2023 @02:59AM (#37723427)
Couple also literally (figuratively) means some small plural number, because a couple people (at least a few, several… many even) use it that way. It’s an understandable mistake in understanding, as the word has a couple meanings.
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Re:'Couple,' 'Few,' and 'Several': The (Mostly) Definitive G... by satvikpendem on Sunday October 01, 2023 @03:02AM (#37723441)
Fortunately, I'm a prescriptivist, not a descriptivist, at least until it doesn't make sense to be anymore, if the language changes so much in the future. No one is still a prescriptivist for Old English, for example.
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Re:'Couple,' 'Few,' and 'Several': The (Mostly) Definitive G... by eyelidlessness on Sunday October 01, 2023 @03:07AM (#37723475)
Fortunately you’re a descriptivist, unfortunately you’re stubborn about it ;)
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Re:'Couple,' 'Few,' and 'Several': The (Mostly) Definitive G... by satvikpendem on Sunday October 01, 2023 @03:11AM (#37723498)
How so? You'd be the descriptivist in this scenario, no?
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Re:'Couple,' 'Few,' and 'Several': The (Mostly) Definitive G... by stavros on Sunday October 01, 2023 @05:53AM (#37724368)
The joke is that everyone is a descriptivist, since language changes whether you want to or not. That joke ignores the fact that I will use the language exactly as I learnt it, when it was objectively perfect, and not a moment before or after.
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Re:'Couple,' 'Few,' and 'Several': The (Mostly) Definitive G... by satvikpendem on Sunday October 01, 2023 @12:28PM (#37727593)
Yeah, that's what I was also implying, haha.
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