I didn’t finish my minor in linguistics, so I am no expert, but I don’t know what 4th person is.
I guess I’d use chat in the same way as y’all or folks, but I’ll stick with y’all because it’s cultural camouflage in my general area. My IRL name reads as foreign to many, so I play up the y’all or if I get really nervous I go, like, totally valley girl.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fourth_person
Generally, pronouns for indefinite referents like English “one” (“One shouldn’t use bad grammar.”) or French on (“On ne devrait pas utiliser la mauvaise grammaire.”), which typically go with the third person verb declension, even when it’s understood to be referring to the first or second person.
In some languages a specific pronoun to distinguish third person referents. “John saw Bill as he was leaving.” Who was leaving? In English it’s unclear, but in some languages you can use 3rd person “he” to specify that John was leaving, and 4th person to say that Bill was leaving.
meanwhile in Jamaica, “chat” is the favored way to say “talk,” so I suppose a gen z Jamaican might say “chat with the chat” instead of “speak with the group.”
which reminds me, Ghoulardi, the famous Cleveland tv host, used to address his audience as “group.” as in “hello, group. welcome to the show.”
I’m just kinda rambling, if you couldn’t tell…
As a legit old person, I have to say I’m amused by generations younger than mine being confused by the slang used by “teh youts”.
That’s really interesting. To me “chat” reads as second person plural (so, serving the purpose that youse, you guys and y’all do to fill the ambiguity in English with “you” being expected to do double duty as singular and plural), but with the additional layer of non locality- it’s kind of specific to online or phone communication in a way that other second person plurals aren’t, because it conveys an uncertainty about the number of listeners.
If you (plural) were being critical, it could be said that it gives off an air of main character syndrome, implying that the speaker is the main event and everyone else is the audience, but that could just be me over-analysing things.
Now I think you’re getting into Transformational-Generative linguistics; looking at the underlying meaning of words and phrases.
I know that “fartlek” , means “speed play”, and is a type of training method used in running. Reddit (always a reliable source) tells me that the English “fart” is derived from the proto-Indo-European “perd”, and that the Swedish/Danish “fart” is related to “fare” as in “journey”.
Bonus DL link
datasoong47
atii-uqaulahaluanngilutit
My favorite response to “that’s not a word” is “then why do you know what it means?”
eshesmites
Every time someone within 30 miles of me says “that’s a made up word” I am uncontrollably compelled to respond “ALL WORDS ARE MADE UP!”
felixcloud6288
In a college language class I took, we talked about the Jabberwocky poem and the professor had us try to explain every word in it. When we got to ‘outgrabe’ she asked why it was past tense and my response was “Cause the present tense is outgribe”. Her response was “That doesn’t answer the question but that brings up a better one. Why do you know that?”
It’s a great way to blow someone’s mind.
I can absolutely believe that one, because back at the other place, we had a light-hearted argument about the pronunciation of the words to Jabberwocky.
Hofstadter’s Le ton beau de Marot has a section talking about the joys of translating Jabberwocky into other languages.
Il brilgue: les tôves lubricilleux
Se gyrent en vrillant dans le guave.
Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux
Et le mômerade horsgrave.
Should this go in Fooooonts, or Languages?
Meh, here you go. An exploration on ways to represent the Umlaut.
Parts 2 and 3 are linked at the bottom of Part 1
Wow, TIL the vertical lines and single dots existed!
One, Two, Three (1961)
Ingeborg {Liselotte Pulver}: Guten Morgen, Herr MacNamara.
CR MacNamara {James Cagney}: And a good Morgen to you, Frowline [Fräulein] Ingeborg.
Ingeborg: It is not FROW-line, it is FROY-line, with an Umlaut.
CR MacNamara: [whistles] I’ll say!
