im from russia, and we’re calling our pets and other animals according to their gender. i mean, if your cat have a female gender, we use she/her, if your dog is a male gender, we use he/his
english speaking people, do you really calls animals like “it”?
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u/mymisuhenooo, your post does fit the subreddit!
We typically use gender pronouns for animals the same way we do humans, and like most humans, the standard pronouns fit well enough. I’m sure there are exceptions.
Where did you get this idea?
We use both. “It” is more common when we don’t know the gender.
I mean what if you are talking about someone else’s pet and you don’t know if the pet is male or female? Btw in germany we use the pronouns that used for the species. You know, like a fork is uses female pronouns and a spoon uses male pronouns. For some reason. So cats are usually she and dogs are usually he.
For pets, we use he or she if that’s their appropriate pronouns, and they if we don’t know. Just like human beings.
Using it is far less common. Maybe slightly more common for wild animals. e.g. that crow just flew down and it took my food
If the we know the sex of the animal, we will say “he” or “she”, similar to how we address humans. Otherwise way say “it”. Recently, “they” is becoming a gender neutral pronoun, but still uses plural verbs. For example, “Aw, look at that dog, they are so cute!” Referring to a single dog.
Our pets are he and she. ‘It’ would refer to a strange animal we aren’t familiar with.
I’m sure there are differences in how they are referred to in different regions though.
Yes, but some people try to avoid it, since they’re not objects. We usually don’t call our own pets “it”, since we know the sex and see them more like people than things. If it’s a random animal, we’re more likely to refer to them as “it”. Some may use “he” as the default even though it’s a male pronoun though. Sometimes people just assume they’re male until proven otherwise.
We use IT when the animal has been neutered or spayed
My wife calls all dogs, male and female, “he”, and all cats “her”.
It is frustrating as we have a female dog and a male cat.
We use “it” as a gender neutral pronoun until we know the animal’s gender.
Pets are more personable, so you’ll see people using ‘they’ sometimes as well as ‘it’ if they don’t know the gender, otherwise it’s ‘it’ for all animals unless you know their gender
Sometimes. A lot of the time it’s not possible to tell an animal’s gender from a glance. I personally always refer to animals by their gender, if I know it, which I often don’t. Some people don’t care enough about animals to bother about their gender, and I will never believe that’s an English-language only thing.
so much misinformation in the replies, how frustrating.
if it’s a pet and you know the gender you say he or she based on their sex. in any other case “it” is the grammatically correct thing to say.
as many people are aware by now, gender is a social construct and animals do not follow those rules. they do not identify, we identify them by their sex. because of this, singular they is not to be used for animals, only for humans. people may do it regardless, and there’s not really any harm in doing so but it is technically wrong.
unlike russian, english does not use gendered nouns. it also doesn’t use gendered articles which in other languages lead to the same outcome as your cat/dog example. german for example has ‘die Katze’ (feminin) and ‘der Hund’ (masculine).
A lot of them do.
I rarely use “it” but my professors in college said that I should.
when the gender is unknown….yes.
For me personally pets are he or she as appropriate, or if I don’t know I tend to pick one at random. Wild animals are it.
This is actually a fascinating question. I think a corpus study is in order.
My native-speaker intuitions, or perhaps my idiolect:
Pets get he or she, rarely it.
“I always give my dog a treat when she goes to the vet.”
Wild animals often get “it” but “she” or “he” doesn’t sound out of place.
“A wild deer was in my yard yesterday. It (she) was grazing on my hostas.”
Insects and other small arthropods seem to usually get “it.”
“I captured a spider and took it outside”
“I captured a spider and took her outside.”
If someone said the second one, I’d assume they had some special fondness or knowledge of spiders.
If it’s my pet, it’s the sex of the animal. My cat is a he.
If it’s someone else’s pet, it’s “it” until I know the sex.
If it’s a wild animal, it’s probably “it” but with a few exceptions.
Animals that have high sexual dimorphism, we call by the appropriate sex. Cows are she, bulls are he. Lions with a mane are he.
It irks me so much when people use “he” or “she” to refer to their dogs or cats. Its a damn animal not your baby so treat it accordingly 😭
If we know the species, we’re more likely to say something like “there’s a rabbit” or “look at that coyote”. After that we’re probably going to refer to them as an “it” because we’re not going to get close enough to tell the sex of a rabbit, and it’s really a good idea NOT to approach a coyote.
If there are distinctive sexual characteristics on an animal, we’re going to use an appropriate term, like “doe” for female adult deer, or “buck” or “stag” for an adult male. Youngest deer are fawns, and the in-between stage is often called “yearling”. But once we’ve identified it, we’d likely refer to it as an “it” until we start talking about another one, and then it would be “this one” or “that one”. “Doe” and “buck” are also used for adult rabbits.
There are lots of different descriptive terms we use for all sorts of animals, which can sometimes lead to confusion for non-English speakers. And sometimes there are difficulties when a description is also an impolite word. For example at female dog can appropriately be labeled a bitch, but that term is mostly used only at times when strictly talking about dogs or show dogs or it’s considered inappropriate. One kind of working equine is an ass, also known as a jackass (male) or a jenny (female). Using either of the first two in non-animal related situations is often considered insulting.
All dogs are boys, all cats are girls, until actual gender is revealed, and even then maybe not.
Most languages have gendered nouns, think le poisson/la perruche (French) for instance. It literally has the same effect as English saying “it”, because it’s not as if humans are actively assigning a gender to the items they refer to with the noun’s established gender.
English isn’t a real language; it’s six languages in a trench coat, inventing rules that it doesn’t obey.
I’ve found that “it” is more typically used by people who aren’t fond of animals, most animal lovers will use normal he/she/they pronouns regardless of what type of animal
Interesting tid bit it is customary and appropriate to call a cat of any sex (I mean gender is something that doesn’t really apply to non-human animals) she/her. Much like how you read a baby book they always refer to a baby regardless of sex as he/him.
For non-humans, “it” is always correct in English. There are several exceptions where he or she can be used instead, but it is still correct. Use it first until you learn the situations where another pronoun can also be correct.
For example when we care deeply about something to the point that we have a form of relationship with it, we will give it gender. A car that we love may become a “she” because it is reliable and we can count on it like a mother. Calling it a she/her shows everyone else that this object is very special.
Gender are typically assigned to objects based on their stereotypical attributes. A weapon is often masculine because its strong and mighty. A house, car, or even the earth is often feminine because it provides shelter and comfort.
We also do the inverse. In order to dehumanize someone, we can use the neutral pronoun. I suspect this is the reason that non-binary people do not elect to use there existing neutral pronouns.
We also refer to the physiological gender of animals, if it’s known. “It” is still valid for animals.
Again, objects can be assigned a gender in order to humanize them, but a neuter gender is always correct for anything that isn’t a person.
I rarely call an animal it. I usually assume “he” or “she” if I don’t know
Not really. People will often assume a pet or animal’s gender, but if I see a frog or squirrel running around I’ll probably say it rather than he or she because I don’t know the animal’s gender.
It depends. Pets? No. Wild animals and the like? Yeah probably.
In Appalachia we call babies, “it,” as well, sometimes even if we know the gender. Like, “Awww, it’s trying so hard,” or, “It’s so pretty, “. You eventually graduate to gendered pronouns.
So I think this is to show cuteness. Like it’s for anything cute.
We do since we may not know the gender of the animal unless we know their owner …but I’ll be more likely to just call any cat she and any dog he…I have no idea why because I think every dog my family had when I was a kid was female (spayed) – and we had female and male cats so there’s no logic there.
I personally don’t like “it” for pets because it sounds impersonal. I will use he, she, or they if I don’t know.
I have to stop myself from calling all dogs boy/buddy/etc and all cats gal/miss/etc and I know those animals have both sexes.
if we know the gender, then its he/she. if we dont, it
My mom told me when she was a kid you called an animal “it” after it had been neutered.
That rings ridiculous to me, and i always call the animal he or she.
It is standard English usage. A gendered pronoun has become common and accepted for animals, such as pets, when one wants to show affection as if they were human or near-human.
If I may suggest something. You may want to post similar future questions to an English specific subreddit like r/english or alternatively r/language
Sometimes. Babies too. Or they/he/she. Really whatever goes.
There is actually a trend I have noticed of younger women especially not using “it” to refer to cute animals specifically. Instead, she will either use they or assign it a gender with “he” being slightly more common. I think it is a way to humanize animals. Meanwhile pest or at least not cute animals still get “it”
If I’m asking the name of someone’s pet then I usually say what’s their/ it’s name but if I’m aware of the sex of the animal in question then it’s going to get he she’d
Americans use he or she if the gender is known, it only if we really do not know.
No
Our have names. We call them by those names.
No, we do the same as you.
It with animals and small children, yes.
As others have said, she/he when we know. It when we don’t.
Same goes for babies. Very normal to say it if we don’t know when relaying a story about them. ‘I saw a baby yesterday, it had red hair’
However, you wouldn’t say ‘it’ to the parent as it’d be considered rude. We’d say something like ‘your baby has lovely red hair’.
Honestly as someone who speaks both languages (but mostly english my russian is fluent but very bad) I always found the necessary gendering of pets really annoying. Since theres no neutral version of the animal name, it means you always have to guess the gender unless you already know. If i go to a friends house and they have a cat, and I say, you have a nice kot (male cat), theres a good chance they’ll be like oh actually its a koshka (female cat). Like how was i supposed to know?
i call an animal i don’t know the gender of “it”, but aside from that no
I call me dog a good girl about 100 times a day. Always refer to her as “she”, never it.
Usually only if I don’t know the gender
People usually call their own pets he/she, if they don’t know the gender they’ll usually say “it”. But personally I kinda prefer saying “they”, it just feels nicer imo. Like I’m seeing the animal as an actual living being, not an object yknow
That works when you know the animal’s gender. If you don’t, they’re an it.
You mean sex, not gender. Pets don’t have genders, they only have a sex. Gender is a construct of society that a pet would not care about.
Animals generally are ‘it’, but pets are usually he or she
”It” is common for unfamiliar animals that we don’t know the gender of, but I’ve never heard anyone call their pets something other than he/she.
I would usually default to he/him pronouns, with some exceptions – e.g. spiders are always she/her. Sometimes you use it/its, but if so you are avoiding personifying the animal. If I didn’t know the gender and I wanted to specifically personify, and I was remembering how annoying male-defaultism is, I might use they/them.
Fun fact – they/them is becoming really common in English for referring to people when gender is unknown – and I can tell when people are foreign speakers bc they still use he or he/she to refer to that. (E.g. if you’re talking about “the customer”)