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When my wife says I love you, my natural response is you too, meaning “[I love] you too.”

I realise that I’m in the minority here. I more frequently hear me too, but I don’t feel comfortable with that response: I can only hear it as “[I love] me too”.

Is there an argument that the grammatical would be I too, as in “I [love you] too”?

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    I don’t hear “me too” as “[I love] me too”, but as a generic phrase meaning “I am saying this to stand in for the exact words you said, with an added ‘too’”. On the other hand, I would hear “I too” as meaning “I do, too”—that is, “I love me, too”. And I might hear “you too” as an exclamation of surprise: “You love me too?! Jeez, everybody seems to be loving me at the moment!”. I’ll concede that is somewhat far-fetched, though. (Grammatically, there is nothing to show what is being understood where—this is purely a matter of idiom.) May 15, 2014 at 11:59
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    The correct response is "I know. I'm fabulous. How could you not?" May 15, 2014 at 12:03
  • your answer May be correct, when you love to somebody else and when your wife says 'i love you' to you, then you say you too.
    – user72862
    May 15, 2014 at 12:06

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Cast all ambiguity into the abyss! Reply with, 'back at you [pet epithet].'

More seriously I too would code "Me too" as "I love me too", whereas "You too" is unambiguous in that it is second person, so you can't be referring to yourself.

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"Me too" is equivalent to "So do I". If you are comfortable responding "So do I", you should be comfortable using "Me too".

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    or is it "So too do I"?
    – Sam
    May 15, 2014 at 13:17
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Replying with "I love you too" is perfectly reasonable because it gets the point across and no one is likely to misunderstand that "too" is meant to reflect the sentiment back to the first speaker. If you are uncomfortable with the ambiguity of the meaning of "too" in this context, I suggest saying "And I love you."

Yes, you may start a sentence with "and", as per http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/01/can-i-start-a-sentence-with-a-conjunction/

Edit: As noted in the comments, the question relates to the ambiguity of the pronouns rather than the interpretation of "too". But the suggested answer of "And I love you" is still suggested because by removing "too" it avoids the potential for misunderstanding the pronoun.

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  • The question is about the pronouns, not "too". May 15, 2014 at 16:56
  • Okay, I re-read the question and agree that it's about pronouns. I will edit my answer accordingly.But isn't "And I love you" still an appropriate answer to the question because it resolves or avoids ambiguities about both the use of "too" and the pronouns?
    – pyrAmider
    May 15, 2014 at 19:04

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