“Couple of years” Does “a couple of years ago” mean two years or few years?

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Sara

14 jan. 2020 02:41

“Couple of years”

Does “a couple of years ago” mean two years or few years?

Hi, Sara. The answers provided by Keith and Ernest are both valid, but it doesn’t answer your question definitively, nor really help you to understand. I agree more with Keith, but feel it would depend more on the context of the situation, rather than the person speaking. For example, if we were jogging through the local park, and spotted a young man and woman holding hands, walking slowly, and affectionately looking at one another, one of us might say, “That's a couple of people who look like they love with each other.” Obviously, in that instance, we mean “two,” as in those two people, the literal sense, as Ernest stated.

On the other hand, if someone asked me about how long it has been since my dog died, I would probably say, “Well, I don’t remember exactly, but it has been at least a couple of years.” In this instance, since I do not know, I am suggesting that it may be two years or longer. The same answer could easily be given to “When was the last time you visited Bangkok?” Or, “When was the last time you went surfing?” If I knew that it was, in fact, two years ago, those are the words that I probably would say. I was introduced to this myself in my childhood when, while at the market, my mother told me to get “a couple of potatoes” for dinner... for our family... of six. Of course, in my youthful innocence, I only brought back two potatoes, small ones at that, because I was smart, I knew that “a couple” meant two, right? Well, the look my mother gave me would have stopped a tiger in its tracks!

That personal recollection aside, in the newspapers, I often read that a man arrested for committing a crime, “had recently been released from jail after a couple of years” (typically meaning 3 to 5 years, not just 2). Or, a man was “stabbed a couple of times” (yet, we can be fairly certain that whoever stabbed him did not, in the heat of the moment, stop exactly at two). Ditto with fighting (Yeah! I may have punched him a couple of times, but that’s it!) and with romantic relations (Dad! We may have kissed each other a couple of times, but I swear nothing else happened). Despite my avatar’s appearance, I am a middle-aged native speaker, and this is how this phrase has been used over my entire lifetime. Finally, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary agrees with this usage, so it is just not my opinion, but regardless, again, context, or the situation the phrase is being used at that moment, is important.

I sincerely hope that this helps you, instead of possibly confusing you more. I wish you the best of luck in learning the English language, Jonathan.

16 januari 2020