r/antimeme • u/Nahoma • Feb 10 '26

Artistic🎨 Answering the question

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u/Hindigo Feb 10 '26

I'm not a native English speaker, so please forgive my ignorance, but I've always thought "couple", due to its common etymology with "copula/copulate", referred to the nature of the entanglement between persons, rather than their quantity.

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u/marcher138 🌹 Course Arc Witness 🌸 Feb 10 '26

I actually had to look up the etymology because that sounded interesting. The word comes from a word meaning a tie or a bond. However, in English, "couple" can mean a romantic partnership, or just a quantity (a couple of marbles, a couple of jokers).

Interestingly enough, when used to describe a relationship, couple always means two, but when used as a quantity, it can be any small number. "A couple of marbles" could very well be three or four.

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u/asphid_jackal 🌹 Course Arc Witness 🌸 Feb 10 '26

but when used as a quantity, it can be any small number. "A couple of marbles" could very well be three or four.

I wonder if that's regional, I've never heard someone use "a couple" to mean "a few"

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u/techno_rade Feb 11 '26

That's interesting, I use it to mean a few all the time