cvs commit: www/en index.xsl

Wes Peters wes at softweyr.com
Sun Feb 15 19:37:32 PST 2004


On Sunday 15 February 2004 14:25, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <20040215190329.GQ8821 at submonkey.net>
>
>             Ceri Davies <ceri at submonkey.net> writes:
> : On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 10:42:48AM -0800, Wilko Bulte wrote:
> : > wilko       2004/02/15 10:42:48 PST
> : >
> : >   FreeBSD doc repository
> : >
> : >   Modified files:
> : >     en                   index.xsl
> : >   Log:
> : >   A pair of floppies -> a couple of floppies.
> : >
> : >   A pair equals 2 and 2 floppies are not sufficient anymore.
> :
> : "A couple" is numerically equivalent to "a pair".
>
> A couple isn't quite the same as a pair.  A secondary meaning for a
> couple is the same as a few.  "Give me a couple of those biscuits" is
> likely to get you 3 biscuits as 2 in many parts of the US.

Funny, I've lived just about everywhere in the US (except Texas) and "a 
couple" has always meant two.  "A few" would be 2 to 5, several would be 4 or 
5 to maybe a dozen, etc., all the way up to "buttload" which is rougly "more 
than a man can carry."

2 or more seems to be what we really want here.  A parenthetical "X floppies 
for i386 as of this writing" will help the reader to grasp the scale at some 
ill-specified point in time.

-- 
         "Where am I, and what am I doing in this bikeshed?"

Wes Peters                                                  Softweyr LLC
wes at softweyr.com                                    http://softweyr.com/



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