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

[Doug_Harris]

Lynne --
Since you _are_ in the UK, perhaps you can shed some
light on something else -- nothing, directly, to do
with babies, but I can imagine something similar, apparel
wise, applies.
This from today's Daily Candy:

Sykes Seeing
Sykes Clothing

Try to run before you walk and you’re likely to fall over.

Apply the same theory to your wardrobe (i.e., master the basics before
attempting a tartan skirt or embellished jumpsuit) and things will fall into
place.

That’s where Central Saint Martins graduate Joanna Sykes comes in. Her
eponymous collection, which launches this season, comprises twenty perfect
separates. They’re pricey (from £158) but these luxury basics will provide
the nuts and bolts of your fashion armoury. Think softly tailored jackets,
skinny trousers, classic shirts and cool tees in blacks and whites with a
classic rock ’n’ roll spin.

And that’s all there is to it.

Basically.

Available at Matches, 60-64 Ledbury Road, W11 2AJ (020 7221 0255 or
matchesfashion.com). To see styles, go to sykeslondon.com.
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Who _are_ these people who can consider things at such prices?
I know the 70's are a thousand tomorrows ago, but when I lived
there then, few were paying as much per month for a flat! Or a
mortgage. And a pound of carrots might have cost 6p or so at
the street market back of Piccadilly.
How things have _changed_.
cats22 (aka doug)



Lynne Murphy wrote:
A few observations from recent experience:

Referring to babies as 'it' can't just be because of the difficulty in
sexing clothed babies by sight, since (at least in older generation BrE),
it's used of babies whose sex is known--as in the example of our friend who
calls our baby 'it' even though he knows very well that she's a she.  When
he was holding her the other day, he'd say things like "It's really getting
strong now"  or "It's really interested in this paper".  The man is a
father himself, so I'm always shocked by what I perceive as him referring
to a person as a thing.

'Baby' as proper noun/pronoun substitute is alive and well in the midwifery
profession here.  I was in the hospital for my third trimester (what there
was of it) and beyond, so heard a lot of "Let's see what Baby is doing" and
"when Baby is born..."  It got quite annoying after a while (I'd have
preferred 'your baby'), I have to say, but much better than 'it' .

Before ours was born, we didn't know the sex, but used 'he' because 'it'
didn't sound nice to us --and we called her 'Grover', which is part of why
'he' came naturally.  I got so used to it, that I was quite surprised when
we had a girl.  I'm trying very hard to refer to her stuffed animals as
'she' and to give them girly names--but that's not working very well.

Last night there was a good example of generic baby 'it' on a formula ad
(Heinz Nurture) on British tv.  I can't remember it exactly, but something
like 'we care about your baby and its nutrition'.  It struck me that an
American ad would probably use a sexed pronoun there with visuals that said
'here's a boy baby' or 'here's a girl baby'.

For what it's worth, checking on google:

"your baby and its" = 8990 hits
of the first 30, 14 are examples in which 'its' refers to 'your baby'.
Since I'm in the UK, it's probably not reliable that many of the early
examples are from the UK, since the same is true of the next search.

"your baby and their" = 53,000 hits
of the first 30, 25 are examples of 'their' = 'your baby'.

OK, that's enough real work avoidance for now!
Lynne

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org