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What does "we never did" mean here?

Have we met?
We never did.

Does it sound natural to natives?

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    Nina! We meet again and again and again. Please register with EL&U, and you might be able to attract answers from our more senior users. Please accept answers which have helped you. Click on the grey checkmark below the down arrow to turn it green and earn yourself two reputation points. You can post comments underneath your question, definitely, and I think also on answers. Not too sure, it's been a long time since I was a newcomer. Try it out.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Sep 22 at 6:00
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    I personally would say "No, we haven't", but "We never did" may be natural to some English speakers.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Sep 22 at 7:19
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    Or "not until now" if this is the first meeting.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Sep 22 at 8:23
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    using 'we never did' here comes off as strange and foreboding --- Maybe they kept missing one another in the story...? Something about the phrase gives some strange significance to the fact that they haven't met yet.
    – ness
    Commented Sep 22 at 8:37
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    There is a tendency among native speakers to reply mirroring the verb form of the question. Have they contacted you?, say, will normally be replied to with "No, they haven't" or "Yes, they have" not with an unqualified "No they didn't" or "Yes, they did". Thati said, a person might reply with the simple past there but with a qualification: "Yes, they did, but they didn't address my main concern", avoiding the present perfect to draw attention to the irrelevant nature of their contact; from the present perfect "Yes, they have" a listener might infer that their contact was relevant.
    – TimR
    Commented Sep 22 at 17:42

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The full form of the negative answer to the question "Have we ever met?" is "We have never met". You may leave out the participle "met", so long as you keep the auxiliary verb "have". This gives "We have never". But that word order is not idiomatic: the idiomatic word order is "We never have".

But you can't replace the auxiliary verb "have" with "do".

"We never did" would be a suitable answer to a question of the form "Did we ever ... ?". But the OP's question is not of that form.

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  • It's not a replacement. It means: I never did [do] some thing. It's a different form.
    – Lambie
    Commented Sep 23 at 13:49
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We never did means the negative of the propitiation.

Have we ever danced?

No, we never did.

Have we ever had a discussion?

No, we never did.

Is there some confusion of the meaning?

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    Both British and American speakers might find the collision between past perfect (Have we...?) and simple past (We never did.) somewhat jarring.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Sep 22 at 10:25
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    @Elliot "Propitiation?" Are you sure?
    – Ronald Sole
    Commented Sep 22 at 10:41
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    Proposition autocorrect?
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Sep 22 at 12:20
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Have we ever met?

No, we never did. = we never did meet.

You don't have to do this, but it is right, of course:
Person 1: Have we met?
Person 2: Yes, we have.
Person 1: When did we meet?
Person 2: We met last week.

You can answer with the shortened form auxiliary from the simple past:
Person 1: Have you (ever) gone to Rome?
Person 2: No, I never did. [I never did go to Rome.]

Person 1: Have you ever read any Dickens?
Person 2: No, I never did. [No, I never did read any Dickens]

It's fine. In these kinds of contexts, you can switch tenses and auxiliaries as shown above.

And this is not a BrE/AmE thing. It is something that happens in both.

Dialogue _ Full use of verb tenses:
Person 1: Have you had problems with your car?
Person 2: Yes, I have.
Person 1: When did you have problems with your car?
Person 2: I had them last week but I don't now.

Dialogue _ Shortened form:
Person 1: Have you had problems with your car?
Person 2: Yes, I have.
Person 1: When did you have problems with your car?
Person 2: I had them last week but I don't now.

Another example:

Dialogue _ Shortened form:
Person 1: Did you see your parents yesterday?
Person 2: No, but I will tomorrow.

[for: No I didn't. But I will see them tomorrow]

Final example from me: Person 1: Are you cooking tonight?
Person 2: Well, I might.
OR Person 1: Are you cooking tonight?
Person 2: No, I cooked yesterday.

It's fine to shift tenses like that in speech.

This is completely idiomatic in English.

shifting tenses_ two guys speaking

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    In my BrE, "never" with the simple past is a marked form that is used only in certain circumstances: it implies that the whatever is being denied is no longer possible, and often that there was some expectation or hope that it would happen. "Never" with the perfect does not have these implications. "I never did go to Rome" means either that for some reason it is no longer possible for me to do so, or else I am talking about some window of opportunity (perhaps a trip to Italy) within which I might have, but didn't. For a simple statement that it hasn't happened "I have never been to Rome".
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Sep 22 at 20:19
  • @ColinFine Yes, in AmE too. But it can signal a change in the interlocutor's point of view, and it's completely grammatical and idiomatic. Tense shifting in dialogues is very common in English. Of course, I can't provide tens of examples. Two are enough.
    – Lambie
    Commented Sep 24 at 15:13
  • The downvotes here are silly.
    – Lambie
    Commented Sep 27 at 15:55
  • @ColinFine There's a difference between "further explanation" and wrecking an answer.
    – Lambie
    Commented Dec 6 at 15:11
  • I have no idea what yesterday's comment refers to, or why you notified me.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Dec 7 at 15:27

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