You know, I've always heard/said "I mean" when I feel like I didn't say exactly what I meant in my previous statements-- a way of summarizing more concisely whatever my point was. Clarifying. Especially when someone responds to a variation of my intention, rather than what I had hoped to convey. I had just assumed that's what everyone else was feeling when they said it, that they didn't say something right.

And I've never seen a citation in a blog comment before-- that's awesome Habib.