A girl called "it': Choosing the right pronoun for children. Did readers notice—or mind—that the story about the baby referred to "its" parents and "its" umbilical cord? Once upon a time, as linguist Wilson Gray noted in launching the ADS discussion, it was usual to speak of a baby as "it," with no disrespect implied: Babies and young toddlers were like kittens or puppies, their gender not yet relevant.
Grant -
Your post about "it" for an unborn child reminded me of a family story from the "olden days," in this case about 1961. My brother's first unborn child was referred to in utero as WIS (or, playfully, Wissy), which stood for "What's Its Sex." Lean in close, children, and I'll tell you about the days before ultrasound. . .
Pam
Good one to add to my list of "noms de fetus." 🙂 I'm thinking of writing about it.
A common one is "peanut," by the way, although Howard Stern infamously called the fetus of him and his wife "clumpy," which was even more tasteless when there was a miscarriage.
We called our first "pumpkin".
Emmett
When I was pregnant with our second child the firstborn, feeling a bit displaced, suggested we call it "Stinky Putt-putt". This comes from a short story by Dr. Suess, which begins something like "Mrs. Mcabe had 25 sons and named them all Dave." The names Stinky and Putt-putt are given in the story as alternatives to Dave.
The name stuck, and I sometimes think of my lovely daughter Naomi as Stinky Putt-putt.