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Its vs their
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 6:09 am    Post subject: Its vs their Reply with quote
A quick language question for posters, one which cropped up recently in my classroom.

There was a sentence in a vocabulary exercise - 'The baby enjoys splashing in its bath.' One of the learners asked about the use of its. "Why not use their if we do not know the gender of the person in question?" As in the sentence, 'Oh look! Someone is climbing that tall tree. Oh no they have fallen!'

I was not sure immediately, but my response was that using they/their for gender-neutral statements is more typical when there is some sort of physical distance involved, thus obscuring gender, and also for abstract and general cases, where we do not know which people are involved specifically. For the baby, and also for animals, we know exactly which individual in in questions, we have more proximity, but we still do not know the gender, thus leading us to use it and its.

What says the community?
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johntpartee



Joined: 02 Mar 2010
Posts: 3258
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 7:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I saw something somewhere a long time ago that "he/him/his" could be used if the gender was not known or it was a heterogenous group, i.e., "every student should bring his book to class".
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 7:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
No, no, no, Cole. That won't do these days. You'll get a hammering for such sexism! Tsk tsk! Tear out that page from the book and burn it. Then scatter the ashes over the sea's rip-tide. Hic!
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johntpartee



Joined: 02 Mar 2010
Posts: 3258
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 7:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I was gonna say something along the lines of how it would be a faux pas nowadays, but.....

P.S. I'm not Cole.
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HLJHLJ



Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 1218
Location: Ecuador
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 8:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
The student enjoys their class.
The teacher was eating their meal.

I wouldn't use 'its' in either of those sentences, but I would in yours. I don't know why though. The whole gender neutral thing still sounds clumsy to me though. I wonder if someone who has been raised on it would use it differently.
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 8:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
My preference: The baby enjoys splashing in the bath. Smile
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Oh, yeah, you're not Cole. You're John. Must have had one too many nips between meals: I'm confusing my posts and posters... Hic!
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 9:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
The student enjoys ____ meal. A good example, but everything sounds clumsy there, to me at least.

Is it down to some sort of lexical patterning, I wonder. Words like 'student' or 'teacher' are normally followed by 'his' or 'her'. Whereas 'baby' or 'person' are not. Do we ascribe gender to the former, but not the latter?

This is too taxing to be contemplated without another little drink...
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Sashadroogie wrote:
Words like 'student' or 'teacher' are normally followed by 'his' or 'her'. Whereas 'baby' or 'person' are not. Do we ascribe gender to the former, but not the latter?

I had to think way back to my legal studies and recall the following which might shed some light as to why:

    Before 1874, society offered little protection for minors. Children were considered the property of their parents, and neither the government nor private individuals intervened when they were injured, overworked, or neglected. Mary Ellen (Wilson) was rescued from unfit parents only after the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) stepped in on her behalf. ASPCA advocates pointed out that if Mary Ellen were a horse or a dog, her mistreatment would be prohibited by statute. A judge agreed that the young girl deserved at least the same protection as an animal. (Source: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Parent+and+Child )
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Sashadroogie



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
PostPosted: Thu May 23, 2013 10:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Interesting. Wives used to be considered property too, but gender would have been clear. Back then, at least. Hard to know these days.
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