Why does ‘few’ sometimes mean a lot “There’s quite a few ducks in the pond.” and sometimes a little “There’s only a few ducks in the pond.”?

Question

Why does ‘few’ sometimes mean a lot “There’s quite a few ducks in the pond.” and sometimes a little “There’s only a few ducks in the pond.”?

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Answer 1

English professor here. Idiomatic phrases don’t always need to make sense, but in this case it mostly does.

The addition of “quite” promotes “few” to the maximum extent. In other words, there are as many “few” (ducks) as possible.

It’s a stylistic choice rather than a logical quantity, so it’s more for show than accounting,

Also, English is weird.