There is a photo of a baby girl with her brother but the baby can't be much Of differentiated as a girl or boy.
What would it be right to say?
It is a girl. Or
She is a girl.
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8Theoretically both. A proud father announcing the birth would often say "It is a girl!". If someone looked at the photo and mistook her as a boy, he might correct this person saying "She is a girl." (emphasising the "she"). – skymningen Nov 28 '13 at 08:04
3 Answers
You can use it if you don't know the baby's gender, but using it when referring to someone's child is not very polite. If you know the baby's name/gender, it is recommended to use he/she, or even they (to avoid being impolite).
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@mplungjan It's a bit iffy. Someone I don't know well might look at me a little funny if I said that – Dodgie Nov 28 '13 at 08:33
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6More to the point, the it does not refer to the baby, it's a dummy pronoun. As skymninge pointed out, you'd only really use "she is a girl" for emphasis, when correcting someone for example. Other than that, it just makes no sense to use it because "she" already implies "girl". What else would she be? A boy? A crocodile? – RegDwigнt Nov 28 '13 at 09:41
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@RegDwigнt, mplungjan I would say "It's a [girl/boy]!" is a set phrase only used at birth. You wouldn't say "It's a girl" when referring to a baby in a photo. – Matt E. Эллен Nov 28 '13 at 09:45
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4@Matt: I might. When you ask "who's at the door?" the answer isn't "he's the postman" (or "she's the postman") but "it's the postman". As RegDwight says, this is a dummy "it". – Peter Shor Nov 28 '13 at 13:45
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@PeterShor I agree that the it is a dummy it, that's not my point. The only way I can think that you'd get the response "it's a boy" when looking at a photo is if you're asking someone who doesn't know the child. That doesn't seem very likely to me, because if one doens't know the child, how would one know to say boy? If you know the child, you'd say "Oh that's Chester" or something. – Matt E. Эллен Nov 28 '13 at 13:52
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1@Matt: Given your further explanation, I think we more or less agree. – Peter Shor Nov 28 '13 at 13:56
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@mplungjan Haha, I didn't say that such a response would be reasonable! – Dodgie Nov 29 '13 at 02:27
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I didn't say using it was incorrect, I said it's not very polite. I know some people who would be mad if I called their baby an it. – Adam Geraldy Nov 29 '13 at 06:35
As mplungjan noted in a comment thread, the phrase "It's a girl!" is very common on greeting cards, balloons and other celebratory items and would be considered the standard idiom for announcing the gender of a newborn child. But this is the only circumstance where "it" is remotely appropriate.
In the particular context you have provided, the appropriate phrase would be:
She is a girl
However, that doesn't stop people from being rude and using alternatives. If you saw an androgynous person in a crowd, it is relatively common to exclaim:
That's a girl?!
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I never saw a problem in referring to a child as "it" because you don't know its gender. Why are we even imposing gender roles on babies anyway? The PC crowd is usually the one who makes a big deal of not referring to children as "it", as if it's offensive....
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1How would you feel if I called your two-year-old child "it"? Much depends on the definition of the OP's " baby girl", is she an infant, or a toddler? – Mari-Lou A Jan 19 '16 at 11:12