yesterday I learnt that apparently in English "a couple" is generally believed to mean two, exactly, which still feels weird to me, so let's do a poll
thanks to everyone who voted and commented, it was really interesting
@noiob Ist das nicht das gleiche Konzept wie "ein paar" vs. "ein Paar"?
@elomatreb idk vielleicht
@elomatreb @noiob wie viele ist "ein paar" / "ein Paar"?
@puf @elomatreb ein paar is a handful, ein Paar is a couple as in two people, or a matching pair of things
@noiob @elomatreb ah! okay. i translate "ein paar" to mean "a few" but i wasn't aware of another form... surely they sound the same in speech?
@puf @elomatreb Germans pronounce uppercase letters as screaming, it's a bit unsettling at first /jk
@noiob @elomatreb 
one way to make it clear i guess
@noiob @elomatreb ooooooh it's the same root as "a pair" most likely.... i.e. two things, often similar or matching. yeah. "a pair" / "a couple" mean slightly different things but it's essentially two of a thing. "a few" means three or more. HOWEVER native speakers don't always use the terms to mean exactly what i say above.
@puf @elomatreb yeah, English has a bunch of words that are kinda the same because one's from French and one's from German
@elomatreb @noiob that's exactly how I use it as a southern/midwest US english speaker, but I've also had people get angry at me for using "couple" to mean anything other than two
@noiob to me the "primary" meaning is exactly two, but it can also be used as an euphemism to mean at least two
@noiob (non-native speaker here)
it does feel weird, but every time i saw it employed it meant two, so in my mind it means "two" now
@noiob native English speaker... for me, it depends on context - "i grabbed a couple of biscuits" means two or three, maybe four if they're not very big - but "Jane and Elisha are a couple now" is always two
@thamesynne sure, I guess there's no way to differentiate
someone already pointed out that the problem doesn't exist in written German (ein paar/Paar) because we capitalize nouns
@noiob and of course "i'll be a couple of minutes" means "you might as well start that novel you've been meaning to get around to, i'll try and be there before you finish it" ;-)
@thamesynne oh mood
@noiob it usally means more than two to me, but in my native language it usually means exactly two D:
@eearroyo1312 what's that, Spanish? in my native language (German) they're separate words (ein paar / ein Paar)
@noiob yes
But i meant it means exactly two to me in Spanish, i think for most people it means more than two as well
@noiob we say "a few" if we mean three or more, but still only a small number.
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@noiob non-native, for me it depends on the context. "can you grab me a couple things?" can be any small number. "oh yeah they come in couples" means exactly two
@noiob Interesting results!
Is "couple" replacing a word that doesn't exist for non-native-English speakers in English that exists in their native tongue? Or is this just more of a desire for the fluidity of the language?
For what it's worth, while I consider it to mean exactly two, there's enough variance that I am not surprised if people mean otherwise.
@noiob some very interesting results atm
@noiob I said 'exactly two' (native speaker), because that's usually the case. But it can be *used* casually to mean a very small number--if someone said 'a couple', I would expect two, but if I then saw three I would not be surprised.
@noiob i mean if u look at the verb "to couple", or at "coupling", those both basically mean connecting two things
@noiob 99% of the time it means 2. It only means 3 if one wants to be deliberately vague or is unsure. Anything definitely 3 or more is really 'a few'
Unless one has a couple of couples, then that's 4. XD
@bentosmile @noiob Yeah, this right here. And by the time it's definitely 4 or more, then it's "some" in common parlance.
@noiob Native speaker and, while I know it means specifically two, it feels like it can mean more than two.
Someone already linked the xkcd about that whole deal in another reply, because, yeah~.
@noiob i actually had a hard time choosing as a native english speaker, if that tells you anything. in the loose context also shared by "a few," the meaning hovers around two but is not necessarily EXACTLY two. it's fuzzy. it's like the statistical odds converge around two
@noiob it depends on scale imo
"there's a couple of people at the door" is 2 but "i had a couple of m&m's" is a small handful
ah dang, just a couple short of a hundred votes