"It"

Please excuse me while I rant a bit…

The English language has lost its gender-specific pronouns when dealing with inanimate objects (ok, besides ships which are still kind of “shes”). Well, even “animate” animals are often referred to as “it” instead of “he” or “she.” Not so in other languages…at least in German. This is *major fun* for all of us who attempt to learn said language, as all English training in this area proves worthless. No longer are cards “its,” they are “shes.” My pen is referred to as “he” and little girls are “its.” Nice huh.

Well besides the joy of learning to think like this and apply it correctly in everyday conversations I am now dealing with a sort of opposite situation. “Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” (major points to anyone who knows where that quote comes from!)

Ok so. Babies and children in Germany *affectionately* fall into this “it” category and one can go on all day discussing about one of them without the other person knowing if it is a boy or girl. Weird, considering the often needed genderization of other English-neutral nouns, such as friend and well, basically any profession or relationship (ie. teacher, cousin, coworker). One can’t just say “friend” here, it is either a Freund (male) or Freundin (female). So here’s the opposite scenario—now I know if your friend is a boy or girl even though I might not have cared one bit!

But let me get to my real point: I have a baby of unknown gender in my belly. When someone asks about the baby in German, it is wonderfully easy and convenient to discuss many things, as I can go on and on technically calling my baby “it” and noone bats an eye. But whoa whoa, switch the conversation into English and suddenly I feel like a horrible pregnant lady, referring to my baby as “it.” And why? Simply because we don’t use “it” in English for anything typically inanimate, as mentioned above. But how annoying is it to say “he or she” all the time?! I’d rather that it just be ok to talk about the baby as “it” and everyone know that it’s not because I’m in some weird state of denial that I have something living growing inside of me, but simply because I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl (and because it’s totally fine to do in the German language). So there you go. Please don’t be offended next time I talk about the baby a-genderally, it’s purely for practicaly purposes. (Plus it gets repetative to always be saying “the baby” [see previous posts “Yeah, Baby!” and “Medical Marvels” for examples].)

Ok great! Now I’m done. Thanks for listening.