I hate being lazy

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keannu

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Does this mean general people's laziness or my laziness or is it ambiguous?

gz144)I hate being lazy
 

Barb_D

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The speaker/writer is referring to his/her own laziness.
 

emsr2d2

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If the writer had wanted to refer to anyone else's laziness, or the laziness of other people, he would have written:

- I hate laziness.
- I hate people being lazy.

"I hate being lazy" can only mean "I hate it when I am lazy".
 

keannu

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Actually, the orginal sentence I tried to verify was the following, but by mistake, I changed "understand" to "hate". Anyway, both examples are meaningful to check out, I guess. In the following, does the second refer to general laziness or my laziness or is it ambiguous? I think "understand" can result in a different interpretation from "hate"

I can't understand his being lazy
=> I can't understand being lazy (general or me)
 

Barb_D

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In that case, it's the general sense of people being lazy in this world.
 
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