Re:past perfect

[bayan said]

Dear sir,
Thanks for your last reply..& here are some questions befor we begin the past perfect examples from the story"Time machine".
1- After a game of cards one player said"I only lost because you had the luck of the draw"my question is"why did the speaker use "the" befor"draw"?& why didn't he say"drawing"& use the gerund?
2- would you correct this passage of mine"befor I left the bus I had turned to bring my sandwich which I left on the seat behind me but didn't find it,
someone had eaten it.(then a reply comes)~really?who had been hungry?"(p.s
.the past perfect with "turned"is used because I didn't find it then it's a false perhaps in the past not because "verb befor the other one")
3- A son asks his father in the car"What's this mean,dad?"my question is:"Is the contraction instead of "does"or"is"?for I've read that "mean"can never be a noun always a verb,besides I looked it up in a dictionary & the book didn't mention the use of it as a noun only a verb.
thanks in advance.
all the best..

[Tdol]

1 It's a singular piece of luck, not a general state. By empasing the singularity, you imply that it may well not happen next time.
2 I'd say 'before I left the bus I went back to get my sandwich, which I'd left on the seat, but I couldn't find it.
3 'What's this mean' is a colloquial form used because it's easier to day. It doesn't make much sense grammatically, but it saves on tongue work. It does stand for 'is', but don't try to analyse it grammatically.

[mykwyner]

I think that "what's this mean" is an abbreviation for "what does this mean" because no native English speaker of any dialect I have ever heard would say "what is this mean." Perhaps "what does" can be elided to "what uz" and then to "what's"