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I would only use the gendered pronoun if you know the gender of the animal in question. Lions have manes; lionesses don't. A calico or tortiseshell housecat is 99% guaranteed to be female, while an...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T12:00:21Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/10322 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T03:22:54Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/10322 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
I would only use the gendered pronoun if you know the gender of the animal in question. Lions have manes; lionesses don't. A calico or tortiseshell housecat is 99% guaranteed to be female, while an all-orange tabby housecat is 99% guaranteed to be male. Male robins have the bright red breast while female robins are brown. And so on. In your piece, the character has no idea if the bird is male or female, or even real, so "it" is appropriate.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2014-02-12T11:05:24Z (almost 11 years ago)
Original score: 10