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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask how literally you take these statements?

194 replies

KneadingKitty · 09/03/2022 10:28

If someone said to you "can you make a couple of copies of this please?" how many copies would you make?

If someone sent you an email and marked it as "urgent", what does urgent mean to you? How long would you think was acceptable to reply?

First thought of the top of your head rather than properly thinking it!

OP posts:
Babadook76 · 09/03/2022 11:05

2 copies and straight away

Obira · 09/03/2022 11:06

Couple is unspecific to me and just means a small number
How many people are in a “married couple”? Could it be 3 or 4 people? 🙄

gannett · 09/03/2022 11:09

A couple is 2.

Urgent depends on who is asking, what the task is and what my workload is. I know what's genuinely urgent and what isn't in my role, and a lot of people love to stick that red flag on the most pointless shit imaginable.

moonbedazzled · 09/03/2022 11:09

@Obira

A couple is two. The dictionary definition of couple is literally “two people or things of the same type”. Urgent means drop everything and do this as soon as you can. Your colleague is insane.
I agree about urgent but I see couple as meaning a few. And the dictionary says... INFORMAL an indefinite small number. "he hoped she'd be better in a couple of days"

Having said that, the op shouldn't be told off for it. What they did was understandable.

lemongreentea · 09/03/2022 11:09

couple is 2 copies
and urgent means ASAP

SleepingStandingUp · 09/03/2022 11:10

Two copies.
Read immediately and try to deal with it ASAP

Comefromaway · 09/03/2022 11:11

Couple has a very specific meaning whereas few is more open to interpretation

COUPLE
noun
1.two people or things of the same sort considered together.
"a couple of girls were playing marbles"

FEW
determiner · adjective

  1. a small number of.
"may I ask a few questions?"
  1. used to emphasize how small a number is.
"he had few friends"

pronoun

  1. a small number of people or things.
"I will recount a few of the stories told me"
  1. used to emphasize how small a number of people or things is.
"few thought to challenge these assumptions"

noun
the minority of people; the elect.
"art is not just for the few"

Normandy144 · 09/03/2022 11:11

A couple means 2 and if something is marked urgent it means deal with it immediately. To be honest though if something is truly urgent I would expect the person requiring the urgent attention to follow up with a phone call straight away.

Regularsizedrudy · 09/03/2022 11:13

While the pedant in me would be thinking “a couple is 2!” I would probably do about 5 because there’s no harm in having a few more and I know not everyone is a pedant like me. As for urgent I would read that as do the same day.

EmpressSuiko · 09/03/2022 11:14

2 copies and urgent would mean I’d need to reply to immediately/asap

Zilla1 · 09/03/2022 11:25

IME in an office context -

couple is an indeterminate number between 2 to 5 (compared to 2 in a relationship context). Otherwise, 2 would be used.

Urgent is not immediate so, depending on culture and context, it is more 'very soon' than 'now'.

Zilla1 · 09/03/2022 11:27

That said, you had a reasonable interpretation so shouldn't have been criticised.

TrialofTrials · 09/03/2022 11:27

Does the person asking for couple speak english as a first language? I don't and even though i have studied uni in english and have lived in england for 10 years now I only just realised that couple is 2. Used to think couple is another word for few

wheresthespatula · 09/03/2022 11:28

A couple is two, they should have asked for more. And if something is marked urgent you get to it so it's out of the way surely Confused

pitterpatterrain · 09/03/2022 11:29

If they wanted something different doing they should have been way more precise, on them not you

This is why delegation is a skill not just chucking your todo list at other people then complaining

ofwarren · 09/03/2022 11:30

2 and straight away
I'm autistic though, so possibly might not be right.

DeadWeightLifted · 09/03/2022 11:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Zilla1 · 09/03/2022 11:41

@TrialofTrials it still is a few in working contexts, IME.

WouldIwasShookspeared · 09/03/2022 11:51

A couple is 2.

Urgent means deal with as highest priority

Bluesheep8 · 09/03/2022 11:52

A couple means 2
Urgent means immediately to me

Zilla1 · 09/03/2022 11:54

Stop doing this immediate priority thing as this other thing is urgent? No. Immediate is CPR, Urgent are bloods.

TreatTrimTame · 09/03/2022 11:57

2 copies

as long as this person didnt send daily "urgent" messages that werent urgent, then it would be the next job i did and would aim to reply within an hour and have the thing done asap.

GluttonousGorgoyle · 09/03/2022 12:04

Why didn't they just say five then? That's not you taking the statement too literal. That's them expecting an exact number but staring it wrongly.

Cas112 · 09/03/2022 12:10

Working in an office someone saying a couple never actually means a couple so I would always print a few more than a 'couple'

Also urgent emails, I would probably respond within the next 30mins to an hour

TwoCoffeesPlease · 09/03/2022 12:11

I would take “couple” to mean at least two and would probably do 3 or 4 but that’s probably because I used to be a teacher where you can never have two many copies.

The urgent thing I would probably read it and decide how urgent it was for me. In my current job things are often urgent for other people but this doesn’t necessarily mean it reaches the top of my priority list

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