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Kooyeen Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

it / he /she

Hi,

I'm so confused about these...Emotion: tongue tied putit / he / she or something else in parenteses...

  1. "Kooyeen? Is ( ... ) a male?"
  2. "Kooyeen? Is ( ... ) a female?"
  3. "Kooyeen? Is ( ... ) a male or a female?"
  4. "Kooyeen? ( ... ) is a male!"
  5. "Kooyeen? ( ... ) is a female!"
  6. "Kooyeen? I don't know if ( ... ) is a male or a female."
  7. "Kooyeen? ( ... ) is not a male."


    8. I'd like to get an answer that takes account of common American English, not prescriptive grammar rules that apply (maybe) only to very formal contexts.

    Thank you in advance Emotion: smile
  

Top answer

Kooyeen Hi, I'm so confused about these... put it / he / she or something else in parenteses... "Kooyeen?

— Philip

  • Kooyeen Hi, I'm so confused about these...
  • put it / he / she or something else in parenteses...
  • "Kooyeen?
  • Is ( ...
  • " that "Kooyeen?
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11 Answers
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KooyeenHi,

I'm so confused about these...Emotion: tongue tied putit / he / she or something else
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In my opinion, it should be Kooyeen? I don't know if ( it ) is a male or a female.
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You can't refer to people as 'it's.

You could be sneaky and say Kooyeen? I don't know if it is a male or a female name. Then you are calling the name it and not the person.

Realistically, you'd say 'I don't know if Kooyeen is male or female'. 'Is Kooyeen male or female?'

She is always for females.

He is always for males.

It isn't used for people (apart
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I'd say you can refer to a person as "it", as in "Who is it?" "It's Jim."
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Yes that's true. But you are not really referring to a specific person there - it's the sort of thing you say when there is a knock at the door. You have no idea if it is one person, a group of people, a man, woman, child or any variation thereof - or even a dog bashing the door with its tail!
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J LewisI'd say you can refer to a person as "it", as in "Who is it?" "It's Jim."
I agree with Lewis. Even if we know that a person is at the door, we would use "Who is it?"
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You can also say "Who's that over there?" "It's my brother".
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J LewisYou can also say "Who's that over there?" "It's my brother".
I agree. I think It's used in this way is similar to There is a snake over there. The first 'There' does perform the same function as the second 'there'.
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Thank you very much!

So it is not used for people (but it's used for babies, ok). But the he/she question is still not clear... Could you consider these sentences again please?

  1. Kooyeen? Is ( ... ) a male/ guy/ your brother? ---- what about using he here? Or is it more common to use Kooyen / that / that person?
  2. Kooy
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1 and 2 are really the same question so I'll deal with them together.

If you are trying to find out whether K is male or female then you can't use he or she as you don't know. that is what you are asking. It would be very rude. So we use something like Is K male? Is K female? Male and female are quite formal words though. You would normally say something like guy/boy/a man or girl/a woma
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