Is the word ‘chattering’ somewhat offensive?

I suggest you review the definition of chatter in a dictionary. [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chatter](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chatter) >to utter rapid short sounds suggestive of language but inarticulate and indistinct >to talk idly, incessantly, or fast > idle talk **:** [prattle](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prattle) I expect you'll be able to figure out why this was deemed rude now.

Offensive? No, but maybe a bit rude or insulting. Not so much the word - but how he used it to imply their conversation held little value.

it's not inherently offensive, but it describes a specific kind of sound or style of speech.    so in some contexts (like that one) it's offensive because it's belittling.  it implies their talk is just shallow, empty noise.

If you're describing the rapid involuntary clicking of teeth done by somebody who's extremely cold, using "chattering" is inoffensive. If you describe people *talking* as "chattering", you're saying that they're not talking about anything important. That can be seen as quite belittling. As for what the guy in the video said: yes, he was being very rude.

It's not inherantly offensive at all, but it suggests that the conversation is uninteresting, unimportant or otherwise lacking in substance. So in context it can easily be seen as condescending. From what I can see in the short, the women got distracted talking about something off-topic, prompting the guy to interrupt. The joke (more just a funny reaction really) is he interrupted in an uncharacteristically blunt way and obviously shocked the rest of the table. The word "chattering" isn't essential to the humour but it does add to the tone. Since he starts with "Are you ladies..." I'm pretty sure he's also playing into a sexist stereotype where men see women talking amongst themselves about a topic they don't care about as "chatterboxes". Which again adds to the joke since they obviously didn't expect that kind of thing from him.

By calling it chattering, he basically told them to be quiet because what they're saying doesn't matter.

There are a couple contextual vectors intersecting here, I'd argue: 1) A man telling a group of women "are you ladies done \[talking/gossiping\]?" is understood to come across as a sexist remark; here, the male speaker is making a joke out of this implication. He is performing "sexist male who thinks women talk too much" in a humorous, exaggerated manner. 2) Yes, "chattering" carries a dismissive tone that could easily make it offensive if used in earnest. "Chatter" refers to low-value, frivolous speech; to say "are you ladies done ***chattering***" as opposed to "talking" or even "chatting" ensures there is no doubt the speaker intends to be insulting. I would suggest that if we were to fully unpack the implied tone/gist of the male speaker's speech here, we would get something like: ***Are you women done wasting everyone's time with your idle, womanly gossip that has little or no real value, as we all know women typically do? Please note that I do not actually mean this; I am just doing a funny bit in which I pretend to be the type of sexist man who would say something like this.***

My first thought was that this was going to be a driving video. A "chattering" clutch occurs when someone messes up a manual transmission.

Chattering isn't bad on its own but otgers have contextualised it. But I'd say the one missed so far is "Chattering classes" which is the British equivalent of using liberal in the pejorative/derogatory term in the US: people who are portrayed as out-of-touch progressives.

Not so much the word but the context. In that sentence you could substitute 'chattering' with 'gossiping' and get the same thing. The problem is that he's telling them to quiet down while also implying their conversation was a waste of time. Looks like they're on a talk show... the kind of place you *talk* Also telling ladies to quiet down like this also has chauvinist tones (something you'll hear more in older media) which I think is part of some running joke they're doing since they refer to his comment as 'straight Chanse' (I'm assuming Chanse is his name).

It’s less that the word is offensive and more the way he said it. What he’s saying (in a less sort of mean way) is “can you ladies shut up now please?” Or “Can you stop talking now” What he says sort of implies what they are talking about is going on too long and he wants to talk now. Edit: obviously they are all friends here and he said it as a joke but if you said that to someone you didn’t really know it would be very rude.

Yes, it's offensive. It's making noise without any meaning. A child who talks incessantly about nothing is a "chatter box". "Chattering" often refers to animals (like monkeys) making clicks and calls to each other.