Mav in Madison, Wisconsin, has heard content creators on platforms like YouTube and Twitch address their viewers collectively with the word chat, as in Chat, is this real? and Do you see this, chat? She’s heard some people describe chat used in this way as a fourth-person pronoun. Is that correct? No, it’s simply a vocative use of the noun, much the same way one might address one’s audience or listeners or readers. The word gamers is increasingly used in the same way, such as YouTube videos in which the speaker greets viewers with Hi, gamers! This usage of part of something to indicate the whole — in this case, the whole experience of streaming — is a form of meronomy, as in nice wheels to mean “nice car,” even though the phrase alludes to only part of the vehicle. Another example of a meronym is boots on the ground, which denotes actual service members on the ground, not just their footwear. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Chat, the Collective Noun for Livestreaming Viewers”
Hey there, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Mav calling from Madison, Wisconsin.
Hi, Mav. Welcome. What’s going on on the isthmus?
Yeah, so I have a question about a term that’s popped up recently in internet slang.
The term is chat. It comes from content creators streaming on platforms like YouTube and Twitch, referring as a collective to their viewers who have the ability to type messages that the streamers can see, and so they’re nicknamed chat.
So I’ve noticed people taking this one step further and using it in everyday situations, like using it in modern Internet slang, saying things like chat, is this real or do you see this chat to nobody in particular?
So I was talking about it with my friends and we came up with the topic of chat being a fourth person pronoun.
So I guess that’s where my question really lies. Is there such thing as a fourth person pronoun? And if so, would this be an example of one?
Oh, okay. Let’s break this down. This actually came up in the 2023 Word of the Year vote at the American Dialect Society Annual Conference in New York City that I attended. And there was some discussion about chat and whether or not it was a pronoun at all, much less for the person. And the linguist that I heard unanimously agreed it is not a pronoun.
If you take any sentence where chat is being used in this way it’s called the vocative use that is it’s being used to address people when you’re speaking to them and if you replace chat with audience or listeners or readers you’ll see that there’s nothing special about chat being used this way it’s not a new grammatical form it’s not a pronoun and it’s certainly not a fourth person pronoun.
So that said I love the use I really do I love the idea that has left this streaming realm where perhaps on Twitch you’d say, let’s see what the chat thinks.
And then the chat all says their comments.
And then the host who’s on video kind of summarizes or reads out the best ones.
And you’ll find gamer or gamers used in the same way.
You find YouTube videos, Mav, where people are greeting the viewers like, hi gamers, and it’s not even about gaming.
It’s not a video game playthrough or anything like that.
They’re just using gamers to address their audience as a group.
Yeah, I have a friend who refers to us as that in person.
So yeah, although I love the fact that it’s leapt out, it’s so common that it’s able to leap out of something like Twitch or YouTube streaming.
It isn’t a pronoun use, and it’s not fourth person.
Fourth person would be if you said something like, one wouldn’t want to get one’s hands dirty while wearing white slacks.
The one in that sentence is basically a fourth person pronoun.
It’s really rare in English.
Got it.
Yeah, it shows up in some other languages.
Yeah, there’s some Native American languages from the East Coast that use it, but again, not in English, not that common.
What this could be considered, if you’re looking for something linguistic to take back to your friends, is a form of meronymy.
This is M-E-R-O-N-Y-M-Y, where we use a part of a thing to refer to the whole thing.
So chat is just one part of the whole streaming experience, but it’s not the act of chatting we’re talking about when we use chat in that way, but we’re talking about the people who are doing it as a collective, as a body.
So we use meronomy in the same way when we say nice wheels about someone’s new car.
We’re referring to the whole automobile, even though we’re saying wheels.
So wheels is a maronym.
Or if we’re talking about military deployments, we’re talking about boots on the ground.
The boots means actual people.
They’re clearly wearing more than boots.
So that’s what’s really happening here from a linguistic point of view, the moronomy, where the small part is standing in for the larger hole.
Moronomy.
That’s awesome.
We really appreciate you reaching out to us.
And if anything else like this comes up, we’re your people, okay?
Yeah, of course.
Thank you guys so much.
All right.
Be well.
Thanks for calling.
Take care.
All right.
Bye.
Hey, gamers.
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