"meant to have"

[Chris F. Waigl]

On Fri, 2006-09-22 at 20:06 -0400, sagehen wrote:

> Heard just now from BBC "The World" (via PRI):
> In a news account of the accident sustained  by the magnetic train in
> Germany, the newsreader said that x number of people (15?)  "are meant to
> have died" !  (By design!?) UK English uses this  where  on this side we
> say  "supposed to" in the sense of "ought to."  But "supposed to" could
> also mean  "thought to" and perhaps that's where this bizarre use went
> astray.  Or am I wrong in thinking this bizarre?


Strange. I thought it might be a glitch, with the speaker getting
entangled in his or her choice of verb. But there are a few examples out
there where it means essentially the same as "is/are thought to have
died". Google is running into its bug (only very few displayed results
even though more hits are in their database°, though, for me right now:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22is%7Care+meant+to+have+died%22

Chris Waigl
21 they say; "maglev train" was new to me.

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