_it_ WRT a person

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Sat Dec 22 23:08:09 UTC 2012


Isn't the Rabies article talking about an animal victim?'

DanG


On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 4:39 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      _it_ WRT a person
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "[T]he _victim_ has difficulty swallowing, shows panic when presented
> with liquids to drink, and cannot quench _its_ thirst."
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrophobia
>
> explaining how rabies came to be called "hydrophobia"
>
> Probably just a mindfart.
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> You know the guy who writes the "Hatcher" novels? In one of his books,
> he uses "it" to refer to a "child" later in the paragraph revealed to
> be a ten-year-old girl. That's a bit extreme, even for me.
>
> "Different strokes," I reckon.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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