I had a meeting

Posted by Smokey Stover on June 15, 2007

In Reply to: I had a meeting posted by Laurie on June 15, 2007

: When someone says "I had a meeting" what does that really mean? Is it like I had a business meeting or I met up with a friend for drinks?

Ah, once again we are allowed to use our imaginagtions, having been given no context for the phrase in question. In my experience, when someone has "had a meeting," it means that they attended an actual meeting, either scheduled or called, of a group to which that person belongs, either at work or as a social or recreational group, and thus, comaparable to a "business meeting." Often it's actually just a meeting of two people to discuss business matters, but it is still either scheduled or called in order to get something settled, done, arranged, taken care of.
Meeting a friend for drinks or lunch is a perfectly legitimate use of meet, but is usually described later as, "I met a friend for lunch," or "I ran into Shirley and we chatted." Likewise, if you intend to meet for lunch with Shirley, you don't normally say, "I've got a meeting," you say, "I'm having lunch with a friend," or "I'm meeting a friend for lunch." You wouldn't say, "I have a luncheon meeting," unless it was at least partly for business purposes.
SS