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Comment by pkrotich | Hacker News Reader

I agree to with you on the cost of perfectionism - I also didn't care for how women were treated at the restaurant (seating arrangements etc), but like you mentioned it's a fantastic documentary.

I think for me, I came out thinking "damn I truly do may be only 25% dedication to my craft".

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It was probably a typo, but just in case English is your second language: We tend to use "don't care for" or "didn't care for" in this context.

If you say "I didn't care for the way women were treated..", it expresses disapproval.

We use "don't/didn't care about" to mean exactly the opposite. "I didn't care about" means that it doesn't matter to you at all.

Thanks for the feedback - yes I'm not a native English speaker (I'm trilingual)

It's a weird quirk, now that I think about it, as a native English speaker. It's only a change in present / past tense and the preposition, but communicates something completely different.

I guess reflecting on something external is always assumed in the past tense (I didn't care for...), while reflecting on ones own opinions (I don't care for...) suggests personal belief.

And "for" (external) vs "about" (self) intensifies the above.

But there aren't any real logistical or constant rules for why the above is, in English. :(

I often use past tense because in my tribe (Kalenjin for those interested)- when you do historical commentary you don't interject with your current feelings. You say what you felt then (e.g while watching the documentary) unless you talking about how you feel now vs then. It's very contexual.

Rules in English can be confusing [1] ;)

[1] - https://youtu.be/kXH3HDE9Czo

I gather most people from eastern or central Africa are polyglot and much better at switching languages than I am. On behalf of English, I apologize for its irregularity. ;)

So in your first language, how would you express the idea of "I saw a documentary in the past, felt some way at the time, and now feel a different way?" To the extent translation is possible.

Languages fascinate me. Especially in terms of the constructs or concepts they can or can't express.

If you use present tense then it’s how you feel now with no reference when you started feeling so. Past tense implies you felt so then and you still feel so now (linear feeling is assumed). If your feelings have changed then you say how you felt originally and qualify it for the present (now I feel).

It's a little odd yes, but I think it counts as a phrasal verb? (https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/phrasal-verbs-list.ht... - eg. "throw out" vs. "throw up")

I've been learning Russian lately and re-discovering English through my lessons. Phrasal verbs are very present in Russian (as prepositions mainly), and I didn't realize how when I learned English they kind of came to me naturally and now I'm having such a hard time with them.

But when you think about it, phrasal verbs are fucking weird. For example, the various particles you can put after "send" (send out, send in, send up, send down, send away, send for, send into) are all various synonyms of "dispatching"; whereas "turn" as a phrasal verb is WAY more diverse (turn out, turn in, turn up, turn down, turn away, turn into, turn for: all different meanings).

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