mean

mean

1. In the meaning ‘to intend’, mean can be followed by a to-infinitive (when the speaker intends to do something: I meant to go), by an object + to-infinitive (when the speaker intends someone else to do something: I meant you to go) and, more formally, by a that-clause with should (I meant that you should go). Use of mean for + object + to-infinitive (☒ I meant for you to go) is non-standard.

2. I mean is legitimately used to introduce an explanation of what has just been said:

• He was a marvellous butler. I mean, if you went there he'd welcome you in the most graceful and polite and proper way —New Yorker, 1986.

In conversation it is increasingly heard as a sentence-filler, rather like you know (see know):

• ‘Only…very nice?’ he asked woefully. ‘Oh, it's great! I mean, it's fantastic!’ —Los Angeles Times, 1987.

This use is informal only but, as so often, there are borderline uses that blur distinctions:

• I wasn't interested in him. I mean, when you shoot juice, you lose the other thing —H. C. Rae, 1972

• I publish, I mean I have had published, a few what we used to call slim volumes of verse, um, poetry, you know —Christopher Hampton, 1974.

It is all too easy to point to extremes that no one would consider standard

• (You know, like, uh, hey, man, I mean, cool, huh? —L. Woidwode, 1992)

the real difficulties lie in the greyer areas of usage.

3. In the passive, to be meant has for long had the sense ‘to be destined (by providence), to have special significance’:

• When I need you, you are here. You must see how meant it all is —Iris Murdoch, 1974.

During the 20c this use was joined by another passive use in which meant followed by a to-infinitive means little more than ‘supposed, thought, intended’:

• For today he was meant to be having dinner with Stephanie at the Dear Friends —A. N. Wilson, 1986.

This altered meaning is now so familiar that its relative newness can cause surprise.