a English grammar question?

Question

I see the sentence on oxford dictionary:

The baby had been abandoned by its mother.

why its mother, but not his/her mother? isn't its used on animal?

by the way, i wonder that how do we call a person which we don't know his/her gender? his and her are all not suitable. of cause we can use his/her in writing, but how speak?

Answer 1

I think you are correct: a baby should be referred to by either "he" or "she." Not too long ago, it was common to say "his" when the sex of the baby wasn't an important detail, or if the baby's sex was unknown. Feminists objected to this tradition of grammar and subsequently, we see "it" being used when a baby's sex is unknown, simply because it's gender-neutral.

Answer 2

You are correct that we can refer to a baby using "his" or "her" because the baby is a person. However, babies don't always follow this rule. Perhaps it's because we don't think of them as a "person" yet. When speaking to a family member of the child, we would always use "he" or "she" to refer to the baby, because it would be offensive to imply that the baby wasn't a person in this way. If we don't know the gender then we can avoid using a pronoun by saying things like, "What a beautiful baby? What's the baby's name?"

In speaking to refer to a person of unknown gender, we often use "they" as a third-person singular pronoun. You will probably hear this a lot. "His or her" is okay too.

Answer 3

For a very young baby, it is difficult to see the gender. We can say 'it' for a baby when we don't know the gender, because the mother has not told us the gender or we don't know by looking at the baby. After the mother has told us that it is a boy or girl, it would be a little offensive to keep saying 'it'. You should say 'he' or 'she'. For older children, use 'he' or 'she'.

Answer 4

The child wasn't identified by sex so 'its' mother is appropriate.

How we would refer to a person who's gender is unknown depends upon the circumstances. Some examples would be the victim of a car accident, crime, etc. The recipient of an award, bonus, donations. The individual who (fill in the blanks). And so on.

Answer 5

This is a very interesting issue. I don't like to refer to babies as "it" if I know the gender, as it depersonalises the baby in question. I suppose to say "it" is a form of laziness.

Nowadays it is reckoned to be politically correct to use "they" and "their" when referring to a person without being specific about gender. An alternative would be to write he/she or him/her, etc., which can be clumsy. I don't like "they" and "their" as it can lead to absurd situations where it is quite obvious that one is talking about one gender only. For example, only men have prostate glands and only women can give birth. But politically correct people ignore these obvious facts and rigorously call us all by these plural pronouns.

Strictly speaking (and this is the rule I observe) it is permissible to say "he" when speaking neutrally and "he" can apply to male and female when used in very general terms. Some legal documents contain a clause to this effect -- "when the pronoun he is used it shall be taken to cover male and female.....etc. etc."
I'd rather be referred to as "he" than "they"!

Answer 6

Its is just a pronoun in the sentence. The gender isn't known, so that is why its is used.
When speaking if you don't know the gender of the person, and you're not speaking to them directly, say "that person" or "they". Ex: That person is tall. They also have big feet.
Make sense?
If you're speaking to the person, I'd try not to mention gender at all.

Answer 7

If we don't know the gender, we say "its." Yes it does kind of sound a little cold, like an animal, but we all understand that we use that term bec we dont know the gender.