Define "a few weeks"

[lolecky]

If someone (who has been leading you round the houses for almost a year), says something will be done and you will be updated, "in a few weeks", what's the shortest time you can reasonably chase up?

I feel it was suitably vague for a reason

(and AIBU for emailing dead on a fortnight)

Definitely a couple. A few is 5. Haven't got a clue what 3 or 4 are but I'd quite happily not give those hoots either.

TLDR - I don't give n hoots where n is a natural number😁

Three to five weeks.

3-5

2/3, not 7!!

2-4 weeks

3 or 5.
Anything else is either a fortnite, a month or 6 weeks plus.

3 or 4 weeks. 5 at the most.

I asked google and it told me "Alexa says 3 weeks."

PS I agree with Alexa. In most people's minds, a few weeks means somewhere between 2-3 weeks. Not less, and not more.

2 to 3 weeks definitely no more than 4

Between week 3 and week 4 but no later.

What precisely it means doesn't matter. They're never going to do it and they've just got you off their back for at least a month.

I realised this at work with a colleague who's supposed to have done some work on one of our projects by Christmas.

When I asked where it was early in the new year I was told it was just being finished off, since then I've asked twice more only to be told it was their next job and would be done by the end of the day. Nothing has appeared as yet.

I suspect that now it's in their 'too difficult' pile and they will avoid doing this task unless someone stands over them and makes them do it.

I'm not their line manager and it's not up to me to make them do the thing and I now have something else far more important to concentrate on which means that I don't have time to sit down with them and go through it to find out what is stopping the piece of work from being done. Not that I should have to do that, this person is perfectly capable of doing the thing by themselves.

I was quite sure ‘few weeks’ is 2 weeks and without a shadow of doubt I would chase after exactly a fortnight. Still haven’t changed my mind after seeing the other answers. Chase in 14 days!

Nah I agree with this it's between 3 and 7.

2 would be "a couple of weeks". 8 would be "a couple of months".

They wouldn't say " in a month" as that sounds bad.

‘Alexa’ here basically means ‘random anonymous internet person’ (this is where Alexa gets the answer):

alexaanswers.amazon.com/question/5zB3EO8YxCMSkfpesSFYzK

If it was a friend about coming for a brew I would say 2 weeks

if a builder or a major company 2 months

I work for one of the big utilities things take forever

That's nice. I just typed 'a few weeks' into google to see what it said!

All the answers to all the posts on here are from a 'random anonymous internet person'. Here are another few definitions from rando sources, asking the question in Bing:

“A few weeks” is an expression that talks about an indefinite and approximate amount of time, which in this case is a certain amount of weeks. “A few” specifically implies that this is a small amount of weeks, but that we’re talking about more than one or two weeks."

"The term 'a few' doesn't have a precise meaning, although it is sometimes taken to mean three. 'A few' is basically a small number, more than two but not much more."

As 'a couple of weeks' means 2 weeks, then 'a few weeks' by definition means more than 2; but probably less than 4 - as then one would say 'in a month's time'.

Sorry but several means 7+ it's in the name several ie seven

Don't be silly.

Sorry but several means 7+ it's in the name several ie seven

What?!

No, several does not mean 7+ 😂

Several is 'more than two but not many'.

Nope that's a few

Several: some; an amount that is not exact but is fewer than many
dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/several

Several: more than two but not many.
"the author of several books"
from Oxford dictionary

Seven and several share no common roots.

Several: From Anglo-Norman several, from Medieval Latin sēparālis, from Latin sēpar (“separate”).

Seven: From Middle English seven, from Old English seofon (“seven”), from Proto-West Germanic sebun (“seven”), from Proto-Germanic sebun (“seven”), from Proto-Indo-European *septḿ̥ (“seven”).

5-7 weeks.

I notice quite often on here that people use 'a few' to mean two or three - they'll say something like 'I've worked at my job for a few years' and then it'll come out that they joined in the second lockdown, or 'we had a few drinks' and it was two glasses of wine each. I cannot get my head around that. Why not just say 'a couple'? 'A few' is synonymous with 'several' to my mind.