this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
804 points (97.6% liked)

aww

20100 readers
265 users here now

A place with minimal rules for stuff that makes you go awww! Feel free to post pics, gifs, or videos of cats, dogs, babies, or anything cute and remember to be kind to others.

AI posts must be labeled [AI] in the title and are limited to one per week.

While posting and commenting in this community, you must abide by instance-wide rules: https://mastodon.world/about

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No, because people can be respectful of animals while using the word “it”.

You’re asserting all this extra stuff that the word does not convey, because you’ve unconsciously decided that is the only way to use the word.

But as others are telling you, and is true, it is common in English to use “it” for animals. Despite what your lit teacher told you, that does not create disrespect for the animals. People have been caring for animals, people with hearts, people who don’t treat animals the way they would a book, while using the word “it”, for as long as the English language had existed.

That thing where you can’t have empathy for an “it”, that a rule in your head.