It (pronoun)

"It" (IPAEng|ɪt) is a
third-person,
singular
neuter pronoun (subject case) in Modern English.

Usage

In English, words such as "it" and the adjective "its" have been used to refer to babies and pets, although with the passing of the Victorian era this usage has come to be considered too impersonal, with many usage critics arguing that it demeans a conscious being to the status of a mere thing. This use of "it" also got bad press when various regimes used it as a rhetorical device to dehumanize their enemies, implying that they were little better than animals. The word remains in common use however, and its use increases with how impersonal whatever the speaker is referring is to them. For example someone else's dog is often referred to as it, especially if the dog isn't known by the speaker. A person would rarely though, say it when referring to their own cat or dog. Examples:

* The baby had its first checkup.
* They are taking their dog to the vet, they said it looked sick.

"It" is still used for idiomatic phrases such as "Is it a girl or a boy?" Once the gender of the child has been established, the speaker or writer then switches to gender-specific pronouns.

Some people propose using "it" in a wider sense in all the situations where a gender-neutral pronoun might be desired. The advantage of using an existing word is that the language does not have to change as much. The disadvantage is the possibility of causing offense. This usage of "it" is currently very rare, and most commentators feel that it is unlikely to catch on. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one early advocate of this.cquote|QUÆREndash whether we may not, nay ought not, to use a neutral pronoun, relative or representative, to the word "Person", where it hath been used in the sense of homo, mensch, or noun of the common gender, in order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to express either sex indifferently? If this be incorrect in syntax, the whole use of the word Person is lost in a number of instances, or only retained by some stiff and strange position of the words, asndash "not letting the person be aware wherein offense has been given"ndash instead ofndash "wherein he or she has offended". In my [judgment] both the specific intention and general etymon of "Person" in such sentences fully authorise the use of it and which instead of he, she, him, her, who, whom.-- Anima Poetæ: From the Unpublished Note-Books of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge (1895), p. 190. ["Homo" and "mensch" are Latin and German words which mean `man' in a general sex-neutral sense, as opposed to "vir" and "mann", which mean `man' in the specifically masculine sense.] One author who consistently wrote in this manner was the children's author E. Nesbit, who often wrote of mixed groups of children, and would write, e.g., "Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage. ("Five Children and It", p. 1)"

In earlier Middle English, arising from Old English, the pronoun was "hit" (similar to Dutch "het" and West Frisian "hit" with the same meaning), with the unaspirated "it" being an unaccented form. The genitive was "his", with the new form "its" only arising by analogy in later Middle English.

The pronoun "it" also serves as a place-holder subject (dummy pronoun) in sentences with no identifiable actor, such as "It rained last night."

ee also

* Generic antecedents
* Gender-specific pronoun
* English personal pronouns

External links

* William Malone Baskervill and James Witt Sewel, [http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wmbaskervill/bl-wmbaskervill-grammar-syntax-pronouns.htm "An English Grammar"] , 1896."'
* [http://www.bartleby.com/61/94/I0259400.html 'It'] , "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language", Fourth edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).