Can "individual" be referred to as "it"? Or only he/she/they?
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https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=baby+had+its%2C+baby+had+her%2Cbaby+had+his&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbaby%20had%20its%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cbaby%20had%20her%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cbaby%20had%20his%3B%2Cc0 – Jim Feb 26 '19 at 21:22
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It's generally inappropriate to refer to an individual as "it". "It" is used to refer to an unintelligent/unthinking target.
If referring to a human individual of unknown gender, use singular "they". It is usually acceptable to refer to an animal as "it" if the gender is unknown
Mattark
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But what about the word "individual" itself? Namely, is it grammatically correct to say "each individual can reach its full potential"? Or should it be "they" in this case? Thanks. – Pavel Emelyanov Feb 27 '19 at 22:40
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"It's a boy" or "It's a girl" is commonly used to refer to a newborn of previously unknown gender. However, as Mattark noted, "it" is inappropriate to refer to anyone older.
Literalman
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