only care about yourselves

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artart
Posts:96
Joined:2018-03-25, 6:06
only care about yourselves

Postby artart » 2022-05-26, 5:15

1) You only care about yourselves.

Can't that sentence have two meanings:
a) You, as a group, only care about yourselves. You don't care about other groups of people.
b) Each of you cares about himself or herself and no one else.

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linguoboy
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Re: only care about yourselves

Postby linguoboy » 2022-05-26, 20:10

artart wrote:1) You only care about yourselves.

Can't that sentence have two meanings:
a) You, as a group, only care about yourselves. You don't care about other groups of people.
b) Each of you cares about himself or herself and no one else.

I agree that the sentence is ambiguous and I'd have to rely on context to figure out whether (a) or (b) is intended.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons


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