#fourth person pronoun

[thatonemor]

I am now coining the term "elmo" as a fourth person pronoun when referring specifically to mental health

example uses:

"I'm not doing great lately elmo"

"Today was rough elmo, but I managed to get through it"

"Elmo, I'm feeling great today!"

it will now be joining "chat" as the second fourth person pronoun in my vocabulary

[sophiamcdougall]

I have just barely restrained myself from adding this to that "chat" post, because it's a little too mean, but once again:

"CHAT" IS A NOUN.

IT'S JUST A NOUN.

LIKE ANY OTHER NOUN!

YOU CAN MAKE ANY NOUN A TERM OF ADDRESS! YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO!

LIKE "GOD". LIKE "READER." LIKE "OUR STUDIO AUDIENCE AND EVERYONE WATCHING ALONG AT HOME." LIKE "[TOWN NAME], MAKE SOME NOISE!"

You want to talk to something you've never spoken to before? You can!

"Hello, microwave. I'm sad about people being wrong on the internet today."

If someone catches you doing this, they may observe that this is new and startling behaviour for you. "They never used to talk to the microwave," they may exclaim, in concern. But they will not conclude that "microwave" has suddenly become a fucking pronoun, unless your microwave-befriending self is the sanest person in the goddamn kitchen!

IF YOU EXTEND ANY IMAGINED SPEECH ADDRESSED TO "CHAT" LONG ENOUGH YOU WILL INVARIABLY ARRIVE AT SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

"That's just me, but what do you think, chat? How do you like to take care of yourselves? Anyway, that's all for now, chat. Love you." I.E THE PERFECTLY NORMAL SECOND PERSON PRONOUN BECAUSE "CHAT" IS EXACTLY LIKE ANY OTHER NOUN.

And saying "ah, but it's fourth person because it's breaking the fourth wall" NOT ONLY ISN'T HOW LANGUAGE WORKS, IT ISN'T HOW NUMBERING WORKS!!

If I wake up in the morning, open the door to the postman, and then see someone coming out of the fourth door on my street, that does not make them the fourth person I've seen that day!

If you have three cars, but one has a six in the number plate, you do not have six cars!

Numbering depends on how many things you actually have!

This is absolute nonsense! Stop!

[the-lorax-mustache]

I was just reminded of a rumor (?) misinformation campaign (?) that went viral a few months ago.

The rumor was that the word "chat" in the context of addressing the audience of a live steam, was the English language's "First ever 4th person pronoun".

This is wrong for a few reasons. The first being that chat is not even a pronoun! It's just a regular noun.

A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun.

Chat isn't replacing another word.

In this case chat could be replaced by the second person plural pronoun. (Y'all in some English dialects)

So for example "Chat, is this real?"

Could be replaced with "Y'all, is this real?" And have the same meaning.

Let's take a step back and talk about who the people are in the pronouns.

First person pronouns refer to the person speaking (including a group that the person is part of)

some first person singular pronouns are: I, me, my

Some first person plural pronouns are: we, us, our

Second person pronouns refer to the person or people the speaker is talking to (you, your) ("standard" English lost its 2nd person plural pronouns but that's a story for a different time)

Third person pronouns refer to anyone or anything that is neither the speaker nor the one being directly spoken to. (She, he, it, they, etc.)

People were arguing that the chat was a "fourth person" because they were not physically occupying the same space as the speaker.

Yet we have communicated through language with people not in the same space as us since the invention of writing, and do not use different pronouns than in person.

I would ask "how are you? " in person, on the phone, and in a letter. Every time the pronoun remains "you"'.

But this raises the question, could there be a grammatical 4th person? Who would that be? Would time travel need to be involved?

Chat, let me know what you think.

[ly0nstea]

Cringe, bad: the fourth person is about some unknown person or unsepecified person or blah blah blah blah blah

Based, good: the fourth person pronoun is the second person pronoun squared

[max-the-gender-goblin]

4th person pronouns??

I saw a video somewhere about a reddit post about that a kid in class was talking with a teacher and said something like "Chat can you believe this?"

OP said something about how 'chat' was used as a fourth person pronoun.

YouTubers refer to their audience as viewers and subscribers without seeing them but knowing they're there. In that case, would 'viewer' and 'subscriber' be fourth person pronouns as well?

I looked up to see if there were fourth person pronouns and I found this:

It talks about the collective use of fourth person pronouns such as: We, Us, and Ours. Along with the indefinite use: One, One's, Oneself, Somebody, Anybody.

With this information I believe that Chat, Viewer, and Subscriber, are fourth (or maybe fifth??) person pronouns.

[abbiistabbii]

If "chat" or "dear reader" is a fourth person pronoun then when a panto dame says "Hello Boys and Girls", boys and girls is a fourth person pronoun.

[maplecinnamonbun]

of course “chat” is a pronoun, it’s short for “Chatthew”

[chrisythespecial]

I'm no expert, but I completely agree. It depends on the context, but chat is what I'd consider an indirect or plural 2nd person pronoun in most contexts (if you want to consider "chat" a pronoun in the first place). But essentially, you're talking to a "you" that may or may not actually be present, but essentially, it's a form of "you/you all" when someone is speaking to chat.

Referring to oneself as part of chat or chat indirectly can also change the form to a 1st or 3rd person pronoun, since "chat" is replacing "we/us" (1st person) or "they/them" (3rd person).

In short, there are way more than 4 pronouns, but there is no 4th person group for pronouns to fall under. Pronouns are just words we use in place of other words and names in the context of

1st person: I/me/we/us

2nd person: you/you all

3rd person: he/she/they/them/it

In English, we have no concept of a 4th group of individuals or objects that we can address directly or indirectly. Chat just happens to be a word that can fit into all personal pronoun groups in some context or another.

So chat, I hope this clears up some of the confusion about what you/we really are, and helps you get a better understanding of English grammar!

I keep seeing the "chat is a fourth person pronoun" post and it's getting increasingly hard to avoid starting discourse in the notes of it. chat I don't think they know what these linguistics terms they're using mean

[kazhanko-art]

якщо «чат» займенник четвертий особи, тоді «господи» також?

[reality-itself-but-magic]

saw the whole chat is fourth person thing thought hey this sounds like The Tumblr Bullshit ive heard about but yeah its fake. gonna list red flags in the morning

[fedorahead]

ryan seacrest did not say "ok viewers, you decide!" to be erased like this

[snarky-synesthete]

Well fuck. Now I have something ELSE to research for my capstone thesis.

[official-linguistics-post]

If you are looking for 4th person pronoun may i offer 'chat', as you are literally referring to those beyound the 'fourth wall"

this ask was created in a lab specifically to torment me

[bathtub-bastard]

If I see one more post arguing that “chat” is becoming a pronoun, I am going to wind up on the news.

[omegasmileyface]

prediction: jan misali's 2024 meme mashup will be called "the first 2024th person pronoun"

[wickedsnack]

wait i'm sorry i decided to look up fourth person perspective to understand what it would even be

fourth person perspective already exists. it's the pov of a collective. its pronouns are "us" and "we"