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didn't do a lot of things



 
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ESL Forum | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
bother coming v.s. bother to come | phrase "national authority"
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didn't do a lot of things #1 (permalink) Sat Oct 20, 2007 12:48 pm   didn't do a lot of things
 

Can one use:
1-I didn't do a lot of things.
to mean:
a-I left a lot of things undone.

In a, the possiblity that I did do a lot of things (and left a lot of other things undone does exist) while in a sentence like
2-'I didn't do much.'
such a possibility doesn't exist.

In other words, can 1 both mean a and 2?
Navi
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didn't do a lot of things #2 (permalink) Sat Oct 20, 2007 15:20 pm   didn't do a lot of things
 

.
I'm not sure I follow you, navi, but yes, 1 can mean both a and 2. 2 would more normally be rephrased as 'I didn't do a lot', though.
.
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didn't do a lot of things #3 (permalink) Sat Oct 20, 2007 20:02 pm   didn't do a lot of things
 

Thanks Mr. Micawber,
I think you have answered the question and there seems to be no problem as far as your reply is concerned.
I guess the problem was that my question wasn't formulated very clearly.

One more question here:
Could:
'I didn't do a lot'
carry the same ambiguity?
Could it ever mean: 'There were a lot of things I left undone'

It seems to me that it cannot. Ti me it would always mean the same as 'I didn't do much'. But imagine this conversation:

-We went to Paris and spent a week there. We saw a lot of things, but we didn't see the Pompidou Center.
-It wasn't just that. We didn't see A LOT.
(Can't this mean: 'There were a lot of things we didn't see although there were a lot we did see?)
Navi
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Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 273

didn't do a lot of things #4 (permalink) Sat Oct 20, 2007 22:06 pm   didn't do a lot of things
 

'We didn't see a lot' is mainly used to mean 'We saw only a few things'.
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