Des Higgins wrote:
On Jun 8, 12:13 pm, johannes wrote:
Des Higgins wrote:
On Jun 8, 9:35 am, johannes wrote:
This may be more appropriate for the English language section, but perhaps
gardeners also have animals. Such animal lovers will affectionately refer
to their pets as a he or she. However, I have noticed that this use of language
has increasingly become standard English, e.g. BBC news. I recently saw a BBC
news story where a beetle was referred to as "he". How far down this road is
this going to go? What about fleas, bacteria etc. Oddly enough, a fetus is
referred to is "it".
Beetles do have clear gender biologically and in some cases the
genders are clearly different looking. In that case, it is possible
that the gender of the beetle was clear and then the use of "he" would
be apropriate. For example, male stag beetles have huge "antlers".
If the gender was not clear, however, then it sounds silly.
But some plants also have clear biologically. I am not clever, just looked it
up in wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_sexuality
"Androecious - plants producing male flowers only, produce pollen but no seeds, the
male plants of a Dioecious species."
"Gynoecious - plants producing female flowers only, produces seeds but no pollen,
the female of a Dioecious species. In some plant species or populations all
individuals are gynoecious with non sexual reproduction used to produce the next
generation."- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
ok, for common usage, referring to insects (or spiders) as "he" or
"she" is unusual but not unheard of. Usually it would be "it".
Referring to mammals as "he" or "she" would be quite common if you
knew the gender (especially for pets). Referring to plants by gender
would be rare and quaint and just for special effect; normally it
would be "it". Most people would not have heard of dioecy or would not
realise that male and female plants existed and would not refer to
such plants by gender.
But there is probably another layer to this. The use of he/she for an animal
usually indicates some affection for the animal. If you were bitten by a
male snake in a forest, you wouldn't say "he bit me". Also, things we don't
like to think of, such as a fetus, is referred to as "it".