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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9108045" data-attributes="member: 18">I mean, I guess I've just always found it strange when people call 2 or 3 &quot;several&quot; because to me it means like, at least 4 and even that's pushing it. YMMV of course, I suspect how people see it used influences how they perceive it - I have noticed that well-educated Americans tend to use it for much smaller values than well-educated British people (weirdly in myyexperience less educated people just tend not to use vagueness of several and specify the actual number, which is frankly the more helpful thing to do!).There's a lot of discussion over whether it has any specific values associated with it. Some people seem to think it means precisely 3 to 7 never more or less (!!!), others think 3-5 is covered by &quot;a few&quot; and several must mean 5 or more. M-W claims it means has multiple meanings including &quot;more than one&quot; (!!! piss off M-W lol), &quot;more than two but fewer than many&quot; (sure), or &quot;a great many&quot; but that's dialectical (it doesn't specify what dialects though).Personally I don't think I heard or read anyone using it for less than 5 until I got on the internet in the 1990s, and I remember being very vexed by someone saying a game was coming out in &quot;several weeks&quot; when the release date was barely two weeks away lol.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9108045, member: 18"] I mean, I guess I've just always found it strange when people call 2 or 3 "several" because to me it means like, at least 4 and even that's pushing it. YMMV of course, I suspect how people see it used influences how they perceive it - I have noticed that well-educated Americans tend to use it for much smaller values than well-educated British people (weirdly in myyexperience less educated people just tend not to use vagueness of several and specify the actual number, which is frankly the more helpful thing to do!). There's a lot of discussion over whether it has any specific values associated with it. Some people seem to think it means precisely 3 to 7 never more or less (!!!), others think 3-5 is covered by "a few" and several must mean 5 or more. M-W claims it means has multiple meanings including "more than one" (!!! piss off M-W lol), "more than two but fewer than many" (sure), or "a great many" but that's dialectical (it doesn't specify what dialects though). Personally I don't think I heard or read anyone using it for less than 5 until I got on the internet in the 1990s, and I remember being very vexed by someone saying a game was coming out in "several weeks" when the release date was barely two weeks away lol. [/QUOTE]

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