I'm a Kiwi living in AU; perhaps I've been misunderstanding Aussies all this time! I've never been aware that anyone would interpret it as anything other than exactly two, I'll have to bear this in mind.
Not that I disbelieve you strict couplists...but I am finding it hard to believe you.
Are you saying that when someone tells you, "Would you mind waiting a couple of minutes," that in all honesty you literally expect to wait two minutes, no more and no less?
Or that if someone in authority says, "I've got a couple of minor issues with your submission," you feel confident they will mention two and only two issues, and never start out with two but work their way up to seven?
I grant that the canonical expected value of a couple is "two." But it seems to me the reason people use "couple" as opposed to "pair" or just "two" is because it allows for some metaphorical wiggle-room.
This is a bad example, since "Would you mind waiting two seconds" might mean 90 seconds. But that doesn't mean you can say 2 instead of 90 in the general case.
I readily concede your astute counterpoint but what I'm suggesting is that unlike actual cardinal numbers, words like "couple" are much more likely to be used euphemistically than literally, when in adjectival phrases. But in the noun form then I agree it means "a pair" and no more.
I'd only say a couple of minutes if I thought two minutes was actually a likely time period, yeah, otherwise I'd say a few minutes if I was less certain.
