#fourth person pronouns

[medieval-snail]

I love this and hate this so much

[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

[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

[bathtub-bastard]

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

[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!

[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"

[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.

[pretzelbea]

Say what you will about “chat,” but it’s the most effective gender neutral alternative to “guys” I’ve ever used

[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

[imaginacjakordiana]

English native speakers on the internet will have negative technical knowledge of their language and then make jokes based on 'rules'that don't even exist

[francisforever2014]

OUGHHH the way this post makes my eye twitch .

people in victorian times when they read a book that said “dear reader”: ITS HORRIFYING THAT WE’RE INVENTING A NEW 4TH PERSON PRONOUN 😱😱

[catgirltoes]

If I had a DNI it would be filled with hyperspecific opinions only I care about.

[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.

[smzeszikorova-reblogs-stuff]

"Chat is a fourth person pronoun—" NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! It's a COLLECTIVE NOUN, DAMMIT!

[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.