411–420 of 578 posts
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Definitions are surprisingly varied. I see these words as being something to be cautious about. For me: couple(formal) = 2 couple(informal) = 2-3 few = 3-5 half-dozen = 6 [gap] ten-or-so = 9-11 dozen(formal) = 12 dozen-ish(informal) = 11-14 And don't get me started on "this Friday" vs "next Friday"...
I like the definition of several as “more than two but fewer than many”
“Several..?”
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"couple" and "few" are debatable, but thanks to Survivor we know definitively that "several" means seven.
Couple is not really debatable - it has a definition that includes 2. Not 2 or 3, or any more than 2. Just 2.
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That sounds more like "a couple". Personally I think "a few" would be anywhere from 3-9, which is more reasonable, if still handily above the median national income (like 250k a year if you save and invest well).
Definitions are surprisingly varied. I see these words as being something to be cautious about. For me: couple(formal) = 2 couple(informal) = 2-3 few = 3-5 half-dozen = 6 [gap] ten-or-so = 9-11 dozen(formal) = 12 dozen-ish(informal) = 11-14 And don't get me started on "this Friday" vs "next Friday"...
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Mine either. An LLM found it for me. And I'm glad you didn't find it because that lead to a great post.
The latest use for AI in 2025: replacing obsolete and non-functional search engines like Google
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Great! In that case I'll take two handfuls of bowling balls and several wheelbarrows. Maybe I should get a couple (4) more wheelbarrows to be safe, bring it down to under 4 balls per barrow
If you're trying to provoke a "wait, that's not what I meant" response with that sarcasm, you won't get it :) Use depends on context, like all language, and deliberately choosing a situation that doesn't suit the language will obviously result in confusion.
It's funny how all the comments seem to assume the conclusion is correct. I think it is far more likely that it is exactly $1M (plus or minus a couple of percent margin of error), and that the packing isn't uniform. It seems extremely unlikely to me that they would fuck it up so bad as to have $500k more in the box than claimed.
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Definitions are surprisingly varied. I see these words as being something to be cautious about. For me: couple(formal) = 2 couple(informal) = 2-3 few = 3-5 half-dozen = 6 [gap] ten-or-so = 9-11 dozen(formal) = 12 dozen-ish(informal) = 11-14 And don't get me started on "this Friday" vs "next Friday"...
Where does “several” fall on your spectrum?
Kind of off-topic, but I've always thought a good way to suss out what sort of background somebody comes from is to ask them to visualise $1million dollars. People from a "working class" background tend to see a massive pile of money, more middle class, a smaller pile, upper class maybe a cheque or a small stack of $100 bills or a bank transfer. It's maybe one of the weirdest parts of the JBR ransom note (getting rea…
IDK, a strap of $100 bills is $10k, so $1M would be 100 of them. Seems sizable. Looks like a strap is about .43 inches tall, so that would make your $1M about 3 and a half feet high or more than a meter tall for the non-imperial afflicted amongst us.
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What if they say “Friday week”?
Native US English speaker here, and this is the first time I have ever heard of this. TIL
Next Friday is sometimes too ambiguous, you can never be sure you share the same definition with the other person. Is it the same as This Friday (the very next occurring Friday), or Friday Week (ie next week's Friday).
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This thread is very informative on your chances of carrying off a heist stealing this cube. Conclusion: Low, unless you're willing to take only a fraction of the face value. Thinking through it though - you might be able to get away with spending the cash overseas, where it will take some time indeed for the money to be under scrutiny by banks to see if the serial numbers are out of circulation. There's then problem…
I literally just said "Nothing from my end" on a zoom call. Still waiting on my million dollars though so not sure how reliable this method is.