The English Language

Are there any English grammar experts out there who can answer this question for me? Should or should not "of" be used with couple? "I had a couple of drinks after dinner." Or, "I had a couple drinks after dinner." Or say, "A couple of kids were playing in my driveway." Or "A couple kids were playing in my driveway." ?? I always follow couple with of, and so does everyone else I know in this part of the world. However, nearly all of my friends from the north and northeast leave off the "of." I don't know the grammar rule. It just always sounds strange to me without "of."
 
I can't site a rule for you, but I always thought it was "couple of". I sometimes hear people make a contraction. i.e. "coupl'a" or however that would be spelled.
 
People do use both, And I am from the "north" and say couple of.......however....from the Oxford Dictionary....

Definition of couple in English


couple

Pronunciation: /ˈkʌp(ə)l/

noun

  • 1two people or things of the same sort considered together:a couple of girls were playing marbles
  • a pair of partners in a dance or game.
  • (plural couple) a pair of hunting dogs.
  • (couples) two collars joined together and used for holding hounds together.
  • a pair of rafters.
  • Mechanics a pair of equal and parallel forces acting in opposite directions, and tending to cause rotation about an axis perpendicular to the plane containing them.
  • 2 [treated as singular or plural] two people who are married or otherwise closely associated romantically or sexually: in three weeks the couple fell in love and became engaged a honeymoon couple
3 informal an indefinite small number: [as pronoun]:he hoped she’d be better in a couple of days
we got some eggs—would you like a couple?
[as determiner]:just a couple more questions
North American -clean the stains with a couple squirts dishwashing liquid
 
Yeah, Lil0, "coupl'a" would not sound strange to me at all. I probably roll over it like that sometimes myself.

Thanks, Poirot, that all made sense to me except for the last example. "Clean the stains with a couple squirts is the kind of thing I hear that sounds strange to me. I might say "a couple more questions," simply because it is a bit awkward to say "more" right after "of."
 
They really did use an awkward sentence to try and illustrate their meaning.
A couple squirts should do the trick. (And I would have said, "just squirt it a couple of times") :)
 
LOL! There are many ways in how to phrase something and how it is understood. For example;

A wife asks her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk and if they have avocados, get 6.
A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk.
The wife asks him, "Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?"
He replied, "They had avocados."

If you're a woman, I'm sure you're going back to read it again!
Men will get it the first time.

:rotfl: :rotfl:
 
Saw that before and it still is hilarious. There is a public speaker, a woman who is a motivational speaker, and so funny. She tells of being asked to make her famous and delicious 7 up. cake, sent the hubby to the store with a numbered list. 1. 5 lb. bag of flour, 2. dozen eggs, 3 pound of sugar, 4 bottle of vanilla, 5. ...the list goes on, and sure enough, he returns with 2 dozen eggs, 3 pounds of sugar, 4 bottles of vanilla, 5 lbs. of butter....I think it ended up 12 cases of 7 up. LOL

say these words, spelled the same way, just different lst letter. Ear. Hear. Dear. Rear. Bear. Year. Sear. Fear. Pear. And then tear..pronounced both ways.

on, con, don, son, ton, won

How about Rodeo. Do you say ROW" dee O...or Row DAY' O?

We have peace (serenity) or piece, (of my mind)

A great deal of credit to those who learn to speak English & write English, and I am sure the same goes to those who learn to speak a foreign language...Italian, French, German, Russian, Polish, Spanish. I bet there are the same sorts of differences in those languages as well.
 
I say all those the same except for ear and ere.

I say ROW-dee-o. I've always associated Row-DAY'-o with city dudes but it could just be a regional thing, for all I know.

The same with "bronc" and "bronco." I've never known anybody around ranches or rodeos to say "bronco."

Then there is "coyote." Around here, nobody pronounces the "e" sound on the end and no "y" sound in the middle. We say, "kie'-oat." (Our "i" sound is flat. No hint of "e" or "y" to finish it off. So the "kie" part of coyote is with a very flat "i," therefore eliminating the "y" in coyote completely). lol...

And finally, "chaps." We have always pronounced it with an "sh" (as in ship) sound at the beginning, rather than "ch," as in chip. Don't know why or how we got so far away from the Spanish pronunciations on some of these words.
 
Not sure if this is really about the English language, or if this will make any sense to those of you whose first language is English, since it's a matter of pronunciation. My husband, who's French Canadian like me, almost always speaks and writes in English while at work (he's a software engineer). And, I don't know why, he adds an "h" to some words, and it makes for some funny stuff. The best example ? He's got a co-worker named Ed. But when my husband says "Hi" to him, he adds an "h", making it sound like "Hi head !" instead of "Hi Ed !". :rotfl: I try to correct my husband, but apparently, the "h" is really important to him ! :) No idea why, though !
 
That's so funny, TheWriter! It is fascinating to hear how people with different language backgrounds manage English pronunciations in such different ways. Maybe your husband is like I was when I took Spanish and French way back in another lifetime. It was much easier for me to write in those languages than it was to speak them.
 
Presume vs Assume. I am a classicist...

CHAMPING AT the bit!"

The newscasters' using "an" in front of "historic." Thankfully, the fad has died out.

Martha Stewart says that the "h" in "herb" should be pronounced. I am undecided.

An old English teacher said that "walk" (the concrete, etc) should be pronounced "wook." ???
 
A. Guy, I was taught in school at a young age to leave the beginning "h" silent and use "an" before it, in some words. I don't think it is done much anymore but I still do it with some words, such as herb. I think it was probably a carry over from past centuries. But then I wonder why words such as "honest" and "honor" would still keep the silent "h."

I have a friend who leaves the h silent in hysterical. It always makes me smile but that doesn't bother me nearly as much as how she and nearly everybody these days uses "hysterical" in a context where I was taught to use "hilarious." I don't know if it is technically incorrect but it makes me cringe whenever I hear someone refer to something as hysterical, meaning funny. I think of hysterical as in a person who loses control from fear or some other emotion. One might become hysterical from hearing or seeing something hilarious.
 
Guilty! But since I was practically collapsed in hysterical laughter, maybe that is why I used it that way. Someone told a joke one night after bowling, and it just struck me so funny, I could not stop laughing. We were still in the bowling alley, tho it was empty otherwise, (I used to bowl nights), and it was so contagious, and people in the bar could hear me, and they began laughing, and no one knew what the heck they were laughing about, except, honest, I just could not stop. Tears were running down my face, I was laughing so hard and so long. I think eventually someone brought me a drink of water. People still talk of that even to this day. LOL
 
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