It (IPA: [ɪt]) is a third-person, singular neuter pronoun (subject case) in Modern English. Look up It in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ... In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... Look up I in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up we in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the Modern English personal pronoun. ... This article is about the Modern English personal pronoun. ... For other uses, see She (disambiguation). ... Look up they in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up he in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Usage

In addition to being used for inanimate objects and abstractions, "it" is sometimes used to refer to people.

In English, words such as it and the adjective its have been used to refer to babies and pets, although with the passing of the Victorian era this usage has come to be considered too impersonal, with many usage critics arguing that it demeans a conscious being to the status of a mere thing. This use of "it" also got bad press when various regimes used it as a rhetorical device to dehumanize their enemies, implying that they were little better than animals. However, few people object to the use of the impersonal pronouns for animals other than pets. The term baby can refer to: an infant a very early computer—the Small-Scale Experimental Machine, nicknamed Baby a musician – Brian Williams – who performs under the name Baby. ... It has been suggested that Residential pets be merged into this article or section. ... In rhetoric, a rhetorical device or resource of language is a technique that an author or speaker uses to evoke an emotional response in his audience (his reader(s) or listener(s)). These emotional responses are central to the meaning of the work or speech, and should also get the...

• The cute little baby giggled and kicked its feet.
• We're taking it to the vet for a checkup.

"It" is still used for idiomatic phrases such as Is it a girl or a boy? Once the gender of the child has been established, the speaker or writer then switches to gender-specific pronouns. An idiom is an expression (i. ... The gender-specific pronouns of a language distinguish between male and female people (and often of animals as well). ...

Some people propose using "it" in a wider sense in all the situations where a gender-neutral pronoun might be desired. The advantage of using an existing word is that the language does not have to change as much. The disadvantage is the possibility of causing offense. This usage of it is currently very rare, and most commentators feel that it is unlikely to catch on. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one early advocate of this. Gender-neutral, gender-inclusive or epicene pronouns are pronouns that neither reveal nor imply the gender or the sex of a person. ... Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 – July 25, 1834) (pronounced ) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. ...

One author who consistently wrote in this manner was the children's author E. Nesbit, who often wrote of mixed groups of children, and would write, e.g., "Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage. (Five Children and It, p. 1)" Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; August 15, 1858 - May 4, 1924) was an English author and poet whose childrens works were published under the androgynous name of E. Nesbit. ... Five Children and It is a childrens book by Edith Nesbit, first published in 1902. ...

In earlier Middle English, the pronoun was hit (similar to Dutch "het" and Frisian "hit" with the same meaning), with the unaspirated it being an unaccented form. The genitive was his, with the new form its only arising by analogy in later Middle English. Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the... This article is about the Frisian languages, as spoken in the north of the Netherlands and Germany. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ...

The pronoun it also serves as a place-holder subject (dummy pronoun) in sentences with no identifiable actor, such as "It rained last night." A dummy pronoun (or more formally expletive pronoun or pleonastic pronoun) is a type of pronoun used in non-pro-drop languages, such as English, when a particular argument of a verb (or preposition) is nonexistent, unknown, irrelevant, already understood, or otherwise not to be spoken of directly, but a...

See also

• Generic antecedents
• Gender-specific pronoun
• English personal pronouns

Generic antecedents are representatives of classes of people, indicated by a reference in ordinary language (most often a pronoun), where gender is typically unknown or irrelevant. ... The gender-specific pronouns of a language distinguish between male and female people (and often of animals as well). ... The English personal pronouns are classified as follows: First person refers to the speaker(s). ... Personal pronouns are pronouns often used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. ... Look up I in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the Modern English personal pronoun. ... Look up he in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see She (disambiguation). ... One is a personal pronoun in the English language. ... Look up we in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the Modern English personal pronoun. ... Look up they in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Gender-neutral, gender-inclusive or epicene pronouns are pronouns that neither reveal nor imply the gender or the sex of a person. ... Look up he in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see She (disambiguation). ... One is a personal pronoun in the English language. ... Many traditional and current uses of distributive constructions in English grammar are broadly described by the term singular they, covering uses of the pronoun they (and its inflected forms) when plurality is not required by the context. ... The Spivak pronouns are new terms proposed to serve as gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronouns in English (see gender-neutral pronouns). ... Gender-neutral, gender-inclusive or epicene pronouns are pronouns that neither reveal nor imply the gender or the sex of a person. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ...

External links

• William Malone Baskervill and James Witt Sewel, An English Grammar, 1896.
• 'It', The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000).