Drinking a couple of beers a day won’t do you any harm.

[sitifan]

1. Drinking a couple of beers a day won’t do you any harm.
2. Drinking two bottles of beer a day won’t do you any harm.
Do the above sentences have the same meaning?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Even though a couple of means two, we often use it more loosely to mean a few.

For example, "It only took a couple of minutes" usually means, "It didn't take long."

 

[GoesStation]

They don't mean the same thing. Sentence two specifies exactly two beers. Sentence one may say "a couple", but the speaker is quite likely to mean three or four, maybe five.

 

[Rover_KE]

Before the lockdown, people kept stopping me in the street to ask that self-same question. I told them that one thing they have in common is that neither specifies the strength of the beers, or the size of the drinks or the bottles, so they're both pretty meaningless.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Before the lockdown, people kept stopping me in the street to ask that self-same question. I told them that one thing they have in common is that neither specifies the strength of the beers, or the size of the drinks or the bottles, so they're both pretty meaningless.

Not to mention drinking a six-pack of Guinness and three growlers of Smuttynose IPA. That's two beers.

 

[GoesStation]

Before the lockdown, people kept stopping me in the street to ask that self-same question.

I know what you mean. One silver lining, eh? At least we get a break from the incessant pestering about drink-counting techniques.

I think I'll have a Corona.

 

[sitifan]

I know what you mean. One silver lining, eh? At least we get a break from the incessant pestering about drink-counting techniques.
I think I'll have a Corona.

What does the sentence in red mean?

 

[Skrej]

Dictionary entry

 

[sitifan]

I know what you mean. One silver lining, eh? At least we get a break from the incessant pestering about drink-counting techniques.

I think I'll have a Corona.

Corona (from the Latin for 'crown') most commonly refers to:

• Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a coronavirus responsible for the 2019–20 outbreak
  • Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the disease caused by the virus
  • COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing global pandemic
• Stellar corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun or another star
• Corona (beer), a Mexican beer

Which does "a Corona" refer to in the quoted passage?

 

[sitifan]

I know what you mean. One silver lining, eh? At least we get a break from the incessant pestering about drink-counting techniques.

I think I'll have a Corona.

I know the meaning of "the incessant pestering." But what does the whole phrase in red mean?

 

[sitifan]

Which one of the definitions you have found do you think makes sense?

Because Rover had mentioned the lockdown, I suspect that GoesStation used "a Corona" as a pun referring to both Covid-19 and a Mexican beer.

 

[GoesStation]

I know what you mean. One silver lining, eh? At least we get a break from the incessant pestering about drink-counting techniques.

I think I'll have a Corona.

What does the sentence in red mean?

I purposely slipped into a very casual register when I replied to Rover's quip alleging his strolls were interrupted by people asking inane questions. Since he began with "Before the lockdown," I remarked that a silver lining — an unexpectedly happy result of the "cloud" that the lockdown represents — is an end to that daily irritation. We were both joking. In casual English, a verbless sentence like Xxxx, eh? is a way to say "Xxxx is something remarkable, isn't it?"

The thread was about beer, so I think I'll have a beer would be one way of commenting "I'm done." Having one of the Corona beers that I have in my fridge is a way of thumbing my nose (look it up) at the pandemic.

 

[Tdol]

They don't mean the same thing. Sentence two specifies exactly two beers. Sentence one may say "a couple", but the speaker is quite likely to mean three or four, maybe five.

Our beer estimate figures are usually higher in the UK. One for the road is plural.

 

[GoesStation]

Hilarious repartee, eh?

 

[sitifan]

Our beer estimate figures are usually higher in the UK. One for the road is plural.

What does the sentence in red mean?

 

[tedmc]

A final drink before one leaves a place (to hit the road).

 

[GoesStation]

Our beer estimate figures are usually higher in the UK. One for the road is plural.

What does the sentence in red mean?

It's intentionally contradictory. It's an old and dangerous custom to have one more alcoholic drink, called "one for the road", after an evening of drinking. Tdol is claiming that, in the UK, the drink is miscounted.

 

[probus]

That "one for the road" expression exists in languages other than English. In Spanish they call that one last drink before one departs"la del estribo" which means roughly "one for the stirrup".