You didn't miss me, right? (possible answer with correct use of English) [duplicate]

A) No, I didn't miss you.

B) Yes, I didn't miss you.

C) No, I did miss you.

D) Yes, I did miss you.

According to my common sense perfect answers can be C) and B) only, and reason behind it is- "didn't" is used/asked in the question, so if the person answering the question agrees with the person asking the question he will probably say "Yes, I didn't miss you," and if he does not agree he should answer "No, I did miss you."

I have checked online everywhere and all four are treated as correct. So, just asking to the experts present here for their views on this, in any context of English language or usage.

EDIT1 : Actually i was hoping that the SPEAKER Of QUESTION can tweak the question to get the desired answers only( only (B), and (C) in my case).But, the English seems to be weak to me after reading all the answers and responses from the experts,as the SPEAKER OF ANSWER totally has the control of the responses and he can speak any of the all four answers A,B,C,D.

What if the question asked was :

Do you miss me a little? OR Did you miss me a little? OR SIMPLY Did you miss me?

I guess again all the previous answers A,B,C,D are correct. ;-)


Unlike some other languages, "yes" and "no" in English do not convey agreement and disagreement (respectively) with a question which is negative: they are much more likely to match the negativity of the answer given.

So, A) and D) are the overwhelmingly more likely answers than B) or C).


I've really enjoyed mulling over this question. All four answers are plausible: A or B if the speaker wasn't missed; C or D if the speaker was. The yes and no in each answer can refer either to the "right?" in the original question [as in B & C], or as ways to emphasize that the person was (or was not) missed [as in A & D].

Colin has explained it very well, although I'm not so sure that A & D are “overwhelmingly more likely.” If, upon returning from a business trip, a man's wife asked him this loaded question ("You didn't miss me, did you?"), I think he might be more likely to answer with C than D, although it'd probably be better punctuated like this:

No! I did miss you!

(Starting with a "Yes" might land him in the doghouse before he was able to complete the rest of his sentence.)


Yes, you can tweak the question to get the desired response. You can say,

Can you please say 'Yes, I didn't miss you' if you didn't miss me, and 'No, I did miss you' if you did miss me?"

What this has to do with how "strong" or "weak" English is, I don't know.

I don't see why the questioner should have any special interest in forcing a response where the adverb is positive and the sentence is negative, or vice versa. (In any case if that "strengthens" the questioner it would thereby "weaken" the responder.")

Because if the questioner can force a limited range of responses from the responder to a question, doesn't the responder simply become weaker in comparison? Doesn't seem to reflect much on English "strength" at all--whatever you mean by that.