#42 - "What do you mean?" Practice with that little word, "mean"

"You know, I can do without Halloween. "
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I don’t like Halloween. It’s just too creepy …scary…for me."
When you asked me “What do mean?” what did you want to find out?
I wasn't sure what you wanted (intended) to say. That little word mean is like a lot of words in English. We use it in many ways. Let’s talk about some ways we use little word: “mean”.

In that question “What do you mean?”, we are using it as a verb. The past tense form of mean is irregular: "meant”. We just add a “t” to mean, but we say “ment”.

Present tense: “I/we/you they mean”  and “he/she/it means”; past tense: we use meant for all subjects (in English past tense verbs stay the same for all subjects.)

We talked about one way of using mean: to ask what one someone wanted to or intended to communicate. “What do you mean?”  Sometimes you hear people say “What did you mean by that. “

We also use mean to talk about intending to do an action. For example, “I meant to get to work on time, but the traffic was terrible.” When we use mean this way, we follow it with the infinitive form of a verb .  The infinitive form  is the  “to” form of a verb. For example “to go” “to clean” “to tell”. 

When we use mean in this way, we usually use it in the past form because we are talking about something that intended to do but we didn’t do, or something that we did but we didn’t intend to do.  For example: I meant to go to your party last weekend, but I had to work. 

Here’s an example of talking about something that I did but I didn’t intend to do: ‘”I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings”. If I call someone by accident, I say ”I’m sorry,  I didn’t mean to call you.” If we bump onto someone with our grocery cart, we can say “Sorry! I didn’t mean to do that.”

We use mean in those ways to talk about intent. We also use mean when someone says a word that I don’t know or understand,  for example: "That tree is slanted to the right.” If I don’t know that word, “slanted”,  I ask:“What does “slanted” mean?” “What does that word mean?”  is a very useful question for English language learners! Notice that we  don’t say “What means slant?” We say “What does slant mean?" 

When we are learning a new language, we also often use mean when we want to ask what a word is in a different language. For example: “What does edificio mean in English?” 

One more way we use mean as a verb: If I want to express strongly that I am very serious about something, I say “I really mean it.” “ I want you to want to help me clean the house on Saturday.  I really mean it!”

Let’s talk about one way we use “mean” as an adjective. When we want to describe a person who is not nice, not pleasant, we use mean. A child says “My brother is mean to me.” Or “Mrs. Jones is a mean teacher.” 

Listen as we use “mean” in our conversation:

Ann: Hey,  I’m sorry! I meant to help you move on Saturday, but I had car trouble.
Briana:  Oh, that’s OK.  My brother, Ben, came over with his boys and they helped me. Well, I mean Ben helped me. The boys spent most of the time complaining that their dad was mean for making them work on a sunny fall day.
Ann: Well, I don’t know what they mean by that. Your brother is the nicest most magnanimous dad that I know, and I really mean that!
Briana: Most magnanimous? I don’t know that word. What does it mean?
Ann: Oh, magnanimous means means generous.
Briana: OK, thanks! Yes, I know what you mean! He is a very magnanimous dad…and brother! I mean,

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