words, not mine
- idiom
- Informal
:
palabras que no son mías
- Dude, those were Davey's words, not mine.
Examples
-
He claimed it was my idea, but those were clearly your words, not mine.
-
I disagree with those opinions; those are Jenny's words, not mine.
-
When she said that, I realized those were his words, not mine.
Synonyms
Saying you repeat someone else's words to show you do not agree
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'words' + negation 'not' + possessive 'mine' yields 'these words are not mine' (i.e. the speaker disowns or is repeating someone else's words). This is a simple negation/possession construction that follows common cross-linguistic patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words and basic grammar will readily infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Words, not mine may come from the image of someone reading from another person's paper and pointing to the words while saying 'words, not mine' to show the sentence is not their idea. So today people use it when they repeat what someone else said but want to make clear they 'do not agree' or 'are not responsible'.