swlabr

“Friends, Romans, countrymen; is this true?” or “Ladies and gentlemen, The Weeknd.”

if you used “y’all” to refer to the groups in these examples, “y’all” is a pronoun.

Addressing someone does not require them to be present or real, so the presence or absence of a literal chat does not somehow transmogrify this noun into a pronoun.

Chat is a metonym (not a pronoun) when you are referring to a group of people in a chatroom, real or imagined. That’s part of the new usage. What’s also part of the new usage is using “chat” but you aren’t thinking about the people you are addressing as part of a chatroom.

Plus we gotta examine the underlying context of how this usage started and how it has evolved. So it starts not as a pronoun when streamers start using it. Then it mutates as people start saying it in real life, outside of a streaming or chatroom context. So let’s say a young child hears someone say “chat, is this true”, and, without looking up what this means or the context, just starts saying it, without knowing what a chatroom is or without a specific audience in mind. I think at that point it becomes a pronoun.

Anyway, none of this is anything to get heated about.

well i mean you are being uncharitable. This is a tiktok, not, like, a paper. “Kind of true” doesn’t mean “absolutely true in all cases across space, time, and other universes”. Yes, he did misidentify “y’all” (it is second person plural) but that just changes what the statement should have meant to “chat is used as a second person plural pronoun”.

I think this analysis is about the usage of “chat is this true/real” outside of streams. Like if someone said out loud “chat is this true” to nobody in particular. Or in like, a meme or something.

Uh, in its contemporary usage in “chat is this true,” it absolutely is a pronoun

(This comment is not really a criticism)

you would not be the first person to look at the etymology of a slur, note that it originally had a different context, and point out that it doesn’t really map 1:1 with its usage.

having not watched the clone wars I can’t comment on specifics with your example.

Anyway, regarding slurs against non-sentient things: “Lemon”, “hunkajunk”, “shitbox” get used for cars, i demand justice for cars!!!

Yeah nah, that’s not what he says at all. In that video, he says: “there is no accepted definition of a fourth person pronoun, here are some concepts that are sometimes referred to as the fourth person, does the modern usage of “chat” fit any of these?” and the answer is: “in some specific ways yes, in other ways no.”

I don’t think he’s the one that started the idea of chat being a fourth person pronoun, I think he’s just discussing the statement and using it as an opportunity to communicate some linguistic concepts, which is cool and good. Also, what’s in your craw, different person?

In my understanding: they aren’t making jokes with the expectation that their audience laughs at the joke itself. The audience is laughing at the target of the joke. In this sense, you might say the right doesn’t meme, and further speculate that they can’t meme.

So yeah they post and repost a lot of “memes,” but it’s never really to be like: “look at this clever meme I made,” it’s just “look at this meme that makes fun of x people”. Their accusation of humorlessness is just a confession.

Based solely on the source this man doesn’t seem to deserve any ire. In fact he breaks down the statement “chat is a 4th person pronoun” quite well. What’s stuck in your craw, old fruit?

Yeah. Even though I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything of true substance, I was hoping there would be more to this story.

I’m sure Suno would find some way to spin it.

I fuckin knew it. I did not know where to look to see the contributor attribution, so thanks for pointing it out.

It’s also why the right can’t meme

are all of my political opinions based on resource management in RTS games??? it would explain all the pylons I’ve warped in around my house

Let’s aim higher. No AI dcs until we are warp capable