In spite of the sweet promise in the above question, many people may miss the gift if the poser comes up in a real life situation. They will bungle the opportunity not because they do not need the money — and not because the person asking is not ready to part with the bountiful cash. But they will miss it on grammar grounds. They will wrongly answer the question by saying, ‘Yes’. Once they say so, it means that they mind being given the money. Put differently, they do not need it!
The fact is that do-you-mind questions are among the trickiest in the English Language. No wonder, they regularly feature in popular examinations such as the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). Unlike what many other questions require, when you say YES to do-yo-mind questions, it means you don’t want the offer:
Do you want me to give you N100m? (A simple, direct…