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

[David Bowie]

From:    Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> At 8:42 AM -0400 9/9/08, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> Does this arise from it's being difficult with babies of tender age
>> to determine their sex by external observation?

> Depending, of course, on where you look.

> Someone a few decades ago (Fillmore?) observed that you can't use
> "it" along with an actual name for an infant or a pet:

> That baby looks just like its mother.
> Little Dana has {his/her/??its} mother's chin.
> Spike is barking as though {he/she/??it} wants to go out.

> Someone (maybe the same someone) used such data to argue for a [+
> personal] feature that would allow these tendencies to be correlated.

I don't agree with the judgment, though. Dana's a sex-ambiguous name,
and so it would still be completely acceptable for me to use "it" if i
don't know the sex of the child (though if i know the family well enough
to know the name, i'm more likely to know the child's sex, too).

There's probably a quarter-to-one SNL skit out there just waiting to be
written on this very issue.

--
David Bowie                               University of Central Florida
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

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