Everyday phrases for communication — Post 16
Read post 15 here
Today’s mini-dialogue:
— I didn’t mean to hurt you. (= I didn’t want to offend you)
— You did too. (=But you did)
What you need to remember:
- The verb MEAN has a few meanings: ‘to signify’, ‘to imply’, ‘to be of importance’, ‘to be serious’.
Also, in spoken English MEAN is often used in the meaning ‘to want, to have an intention’.
— I meant to do it today, but forgot. (=I wanted to do it today…)
— Did you mean to leave your dog here? (=Did you leave your dog here deliberately?)
In this meaning, MEAN is often used for apologising or expressing regret.
— Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. (=I didn’t want to…)
— I didn’t mean it to happen. (=It was not my plan)
2. TOO can be used in arguments to show that you disagree with another person. It’s a very informal way of expressing yourself and is especially popular in American English.
More formally, we would say: You did indeed. or You really did.
How is our example 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝘁𝗼𝗼 structured:
In the first sentence, the speaker used the Past Simple tense — didn’t mean to…
In the response, we insist that we don’t believe the speaker and instead of repeating MEAN the second time, we use DID (the auxiliary of Past Simple). And then we add TOO for emphasis.
— I didn’t mean to forget. — You did too.
— I am not sleeping. — You are too.
— I wasn’t lying. — You were too.
Have you noticed how the auxiliary changes with changing the tense in the first phrase?
What I see in practice is that You did too is the most popular variation meaning we most often argue with something said in Past Simple.
Today we have learnt to use MEAN in one of its many meanings, and also learnt how to argue with something you disagree with in informal conversations.
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My name is Daria Storozhilova and this is a series of mini-lessons teaching you how to communicate in English with helpful phrases and spoken expressions.
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