What does it mean?

Question

what does this sentence mean?
Readers of this magazine are most likely than most people to purchase I.T stocks."

Also I want to ask the difference between these two:
1) what it maens?
2) what does it mean?

thanks

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

There is a misprint. The sentence should be:

Readers of this magazine are more likely than most people to purchase I.T. stocks.

First of all, I.T. stocks are the stocks of the I.T. company, but I don't know which company that is. The stocks represent ownership in the I.T. company. You can check the stock market quotes to see the market prices of stocks.

Some ways of paraphrasing the meaning are:

People who read this magazine probably buy I.T. stocks more than most people.
If you read this magazine, there is a greater chance that you will buy I.T. stocks compared to people who do not read this magazine.

OK?

Elcid · Answer

Thanks califjim!

This past is inderstood. But I asked one more questions.What is the differnce between
1) What does it mean?
2) what it means?

are they alike or second one is wrong ?

Actually while speaking I get confused what Should I say. Should I put helping verb before or should I just neglect it?

S*hart · Answer

What does it mean? is a proper question.

"what it means" is usually part of a statement, but that construction (not using the helping verb [usually "to do"] in a question) is commonly used by ESLers, since helping verbs aren't used in their languages.

Example: - Explain to me what it means.

It can be used as a question it the follwing way, though:

Can you explain to me what it means? or Please explain to me what it means. (not a question)

I'm not so good at explaining the reasons, but in "Can you explain to me what it means", note that the question is really "Can you explain?" the "what it means" is the thing we are asking about. Maybe someone else can explain better.

CalifJim · Answer

Right! I forgot about the second question!

Probably you should try to keep three different forms straight.

Statement: It means ... (as in "It means 'helpful'.")
Direct question: What does it mean?
Indirect question: ... what it means. (This one cannot be used without something before it.)
(I am sure that I know what it means. Who knows what it means? Can you tell me what it means? Maria has no idea what it means. "first" is not what it means. Will anyone be able to guess what it means? )

In asking a direct question you always need a helping verb.

Here's another one:

Statement: He always stores the milk in the refrigerator.
Direct questions: Where does he always store the milk? What does he always store in the refrigerator?
Indirect questions: ... where he always stores the milk. ... what he always stores in the refrigerator.

These can be explained as follows.

The underlying form is: He does always store the milk in the refrigerator.

Statement: Remove "does", but transfer its inflection (the "s") to the main verb ("store")
So "does" goes away and "store" becomes "stores".
Indirect question: To talk about the place (in the refrigerator), substitute "where":
He does always store the milk where?
Transform as for the statement form and move the question word "where" to the beginning:
... where he always stores the milk.
To talk about what is stored, substitute "what" for "milk":
He does always store what in the refrigerator.
Transform as for the statement form and move the question word "what" to the beginning.
... what he always stores in the refrigerator.
Direct question: DO NOT transform as for a statement. Leave "does" in the sentence.
Just reverse the order of the subject "he" and the helper "does", so "he does" becomes "does he".
Does he always store the milk in the refrigerator? (This gives you a "yes-no" question.)

To make a direct question with 'where' or 'what', just substitute and move to the beginning of the "yes-no" question you already have.

Does he always store the milk where? becomes Where does he always store the milk?
Does he always store what in the refrigerator? becomes What does he always store in the refrigerator?

That was a long explanation.

I hope it helped!

P.S. These rules don't work when the main verb is a form of "to be". "to be" doesn't take "do" as a helper, so instead of "Does he be sick?" you have to say "Is he sick?".

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