"A few" + a number : unremarkable quantity [closed]

A few is usually more than two (two often being referred to as "a couple of"), and less than "several". Few emphasises smallness of number, while a few emphasises some:

He's a dull man with few ideas vs. He's a clever man with a few ideas.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/few#Usage_notes

However, the following excerpt is contradictory

A couple of is different from a few in that it does not imply that the relevant amount is relatively small. One might say admiringly of an exceptional center fielder that he can throw the ball a couple of hundred feet, but not, except ironically, a few hundred feet, which would suggest that such a throw was unremarkable.

http://odict.net/couple/

Similarly contradictory is the idiom not a few, which actually means "not few"

FEW (determiner) 8. not a few (informal) ⇒ quite a few, several.

https://www.wordreference.com/definition/few

I hope somebody can help me clarify this whole issue: why does he can throw the ball a few hundred feet suggest that such a throw was unremarkable?

I know "He can throw it few hundred feet" is not grammatical, unlike "He can throw it few feet (off/away/etc.)"

Also, you need a if it's preceded by only, as in I ate only a few apples and a little soup.

The problem is that the quantifiers few and a few are idiomatic, and opposed.

• few (no article) is a negative trigger; it licenses NPIs like ever: Few ever visit his birthplace.
• a few does not license NPIs: *A few ever visit his birthplace

Both quantifiers refer to small integers, but few is a maximum and refers to the smallness of the integer, while a few is a minimum, not a maximum.

Where there are a few, there may be more; but where there are few, there may be even fewer.