Reminds me of this:
I think atproto is a good protocol, but god bluesky-the-company is dogshit.
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
229 points (97.5% liked)
TechTakes
2219 readers
223 users here now
Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.
For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The entire thing boils down to a rhetorical trick: "here are the ways chat is not like other pronouns, so it's reasonable to say it's in a fourth category of pronoun." It entices you to accept the incorrect premise that it's a pronoun and then try to come up with flaws in the inarguable part, which is that this noun doesn't function the same way any pronoun would.
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?
It's not a pronoun, so if one is pretending to talk about linguistics authoritatively one should know that and clearly state it to your audience so that they're not misled into thinking that calling it a fourth-person pronoun is in any way reasonable.
Uh, in its contemporary usage in “chat is this true,” it absolutely is a pronoun