jane@ames.UUCP (Jane Medefesser) (03/10/86)
> I usually call a fetus a "he" because "he" is the more commonly used > pronoun when an unknown PERSON is being discussed. Would you call > a friend an "it" (note: I said friend; I know many its :-)? We call our unborn "he", just 'cuz it's easiest. Most people the say "Aha, so you already know then?" Well, no. It gets kindof awkward I guess. The rest of the family has pet names. My mother-in-law refers to the baby as "Herman". My sisters refer to it as "cousin-it" (meaning my neice's cousin). We refered to my neice as "Fred" (much tongue-in-cheek) until she was born. Jane Medefesser Informatics General Corp. NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, California {..dual,riacs,hplabs,ihnp4}!ames!jane
rfrye@netexa.UUCP (Rob Frye) (03/14/86)
> We call our unborn "he", just 'cuz it's easiest. Most people the say > "Aha, so you already know then?" Well, no. It gets kindof awkward I > guess. > > The rest of the family has pet names. [etc] Before our daughter Laura was born (11/85) we had chosen the name Laura in case it was a girl, (Robert) Alexander in case it was a boy. The nickname "Lorax" came about sorta combining the two -- everyone remember Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax"? Occasionally "it" was "it" or "she", but usually "he" or "baby" or "Lorax"; there were also other pet names. We just really didn't want to refer to "it" as a non-human. -- ---> -- "You can Telenet, but you can't tell it much." Rob Frye, NetExpress Inc. {seismo,rlgvax}!hadron!{netex,netexa}!rfrye