Couple.

[Dennis R. Preston]

Well, I like all these semantics stories, but, being of a simpler mind, I'm
always bogged down in phonology. The weak final syllable of "couple,"
coupled with (no pun intended) the weak syllbale of "of" is ripe for
deletion when the next sound is vocalic (as the first of "years" is). From
there to similar deletion before nonvocalics (a couple dozen) is not much
of a leap, and the well-known historical invasion of lexicon, morphology,
and grammar by the phonology is evidenced all over again.

dInIs (the simple)

>> My own view is you have to explain why it's not a
>> dozen of eggs before you can object to a couple eggs.
>
>Do you also say "a pair eggs"? Probably not. Couple (and pair) seems to need
>the "of" tacked on because of its verb sense "to join; to link." You have to
>describe such a coupling as a "linking _of_" one thing and another. So if
>the gerund takes "of", then at some point somebody must have figured the
>noun must need it, too. (This is a wild-ass guess on my part.) Dozen has no
>such "joining" component, so "a dozen of" is never considered.
>
>Not that I'd ever object too strenuously to "a couple eggs" in informal
>usage. Life's too short, etc. However, I once had a copy editor actually
>*remove* the "of" in one of my sentences, which I wasn't too happy about.
>
>By the way, the American Heritage Dictionary illustrates the informal "two
>or few" sense with a quotation from -- you guessed it -- Garrison Keillor:
>"Every couple years the urge strikes to ... haul off to a new site."
>
>Paul
>http://www.mcfedries.com/


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736