2 Answers2

2

It is almost never appropriate to use it for a person. Sometimes, we seem to use it when asking about somebody's gender. E.g.:

A: My wife's had a baby!

B: Is it a boy or a girl?

A: It's a boy!

but here it is just a dummy pronoun.

If you don't know the gender, you have the following options:

  1. Use an arbitray gender and stick to it (usually he).
  2. Use he / she.
  3. Use they. (This is the most "natural" way for native English speakers, although some consider it a little informal.)
  4. Use a descriptive noun. E.g. the customer.

Note that it is very offensive to refer to transexuals, transvestites, hermaphrodites, and so on as it. If the person adopts a male name, use he. If the person adopts a female name, use she.

Pitarou
  • 13,861
  • I see, thanks for the clear answer. What if I use "it" to something informal such as in the phrase: "Pry it." Would it be safe or appropriate to assume that the "it" could also mean an object, a place, or a person? – jilseego Feb 08 '12 at 03:00
  • You're welcome! :-) But I don't understand your "Pry it." question. – Pitarou Feb 08 '12 at 03:38
  • =) Pry means to examine carefully. I'd like to be able to convey that when I say "pry it", the "it" would mean anything. It's actually fancy name of a category in my blog where I can post anything that I'd like to examine but I am not sure if it's correct. – jilseego Feb 08 '12 at 03:55
  • Well, since it's a general category, "it" is fine, but I think "Pry" is wrong for two reasons. First, when this meaning of pry takes an object you need the word into. ("Pry into it") Second, when you pry into things, you are doing more than just examining closely: you are trying to find secrets. It has negative connotations. "Prying into" somebody's life is usually a bad thing. Check http://wordnik.com/words/pry for examples of sentences. I don't know exactly what you plan to do on your blog, but maybe "Analyze it" or "Examine it" would be better than "Pry into it". – Pitarou Feb 08 '12 at 09:50
  • Poor example, because in neither of the sentences does the it refer to the baby. Much rather, it's a dummy pronoun that doesn't depend on the rest of the sentence or the gender of the subject at hand. Compare: "There's a stranger in our backyard!" — "Is it a woman or a man?" — "It's a man." – RegDwigнt Feb 08 '12 at 12:09
  • @RegDwightѬſ道 Thanks! That's a good point. I'll alter my answer accordingly. – Pitarou Feb 08 '12 at 12:31
  • "Pry" is a bad example. You don't pry (or pry into) a person, you pry a thing or an event. You wouldn't say either, "Pry Fred" or "Pry into Fred". You might say "Pry into Fred's life" or "Pry into the incident where Fred disappered for a week". I suppose you could come up with hypothetical examples where the same word could apply to both a person and a thing, like you can "lose your child" (in a crowd, e.g.) and you can also "lose your car keys". But if you said, "Have you lost something important?" and the person replied, "Yes, my wife", I think we'd take that as a joke. – Jay Aug 23 '12 at 20:51
1

Usually "it" refers to an object. A person is usually referred to by "he", "she", "him", "her", etc. A gender neutral way is to use "they" or "them, even for singles.

Examples:

"John is dirty, it hasn't taken a bath in days."

"John is dirty, he hasn't taken a bath in days."

Andrew
  • 455
  • 4
  • 7
  • 12