Baby's an It (call of the obstetrician?)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/28/2008 08:39 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>Jan Freeman writes about ADS-L discussion here, singling out comments
>by Lynne Murphy and Wilson Gray:
>
>http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/09/28/a_girl_called_it/

Why am I neglected?  It was I who called attention to the Newton
incident ...  On the other hand, I feel honored to be -- at least
implicitly -- lumped among the linguists.

Ms. Freeman writes:
>Babies and young toddlers were like kittens or puppies, their gender
>not yet relevant.

Yes, and like kittens or puppies, when unwanted they too were drowned.

>It may be that for earlier speakers, the grammatical pull of words
>like child and baby - logically "it," not "she" or "he" - was stronger ...

When the English language had gender, were words like "child" and
"baby" neuter?  ("Kind" is in German.)

>Nor was Irving Berlin being disrespectful when he wrote "The Girl
>That I Marry."

He probably didn't know whether to write "who" or "whom".  (And for
some reason, for me neither would sound melodious.)

Joel

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