I'm curious as to when and why so many people in America decided to start using  "couple" in this way...."a couple books", "a couple cars".....instead of the actually correct "a couple of books" etc.

    I can't even say "a couple books" easily if I try.It's very awkward. I could say  "A couple books a room for the night",and that would be correct, couple being used as a verb, or also when couple is normally used as a noun...."a couple of books", etc.

    Saying "a couple books" is the same as saying "a pair shoes"..in fact, "pair" and  "couple" have very similar meanings.

Can someone explain how this usage came about? It sounds horrible and makes no sense at all. Then again people are now saying,for somethning they think is very bad, that "it's very ordinary".....this means than an ordinary person with an ordinary family and an ordinary career,etc., is somehow presumably  a bad person doing bad things. Rediculous!

Perhaps it's like the changing of some sayings....Americans today saying " I could care less what he thinks", when what they really mean is "I couldn't care less what he thinks".If you say "I could care less", you are then saying you already care a lot about what he thinks.

I am talking about normal daily language,not pedantic nit-picking.

Ward