There is a photo of a baby girl with her brother but the baby can't be much Of differentiated as a girl or boy. What would it be right to say? It is a girl. Or She is a girl.
121998
So, my boss comes in, railing that "English is a stupid language!" Since this is pretty much a thrice-weekly occurrence 'round these parts, I barely raised an eyebrow, and waited for him to continue.   "Mary just wrote to tell us that she's back from maternity leave, and I want to congratulate her and ask whether she had a girl or a boy, but I can't do it without calling the child an 'it'!" I blinked, then confirmed that yes, he believes the it in "Is it a boy or a girl" is the impersonal pronoun, the same word you'd apply to an apple or a house.  Is it the 'thing' pronoun, really? Or is it just a placeholder of some sort? I used to believe the latter: I gave the boss a mini-lecture about  and the . He wasn't convinced, however, and now he's got me doubting too. (Harumph. I really should know better than to listen to the boss.)  I'm not asking about politeness, here; the former title was to be taken somewhat facetiously. I'm wondering about the grammar: what role is that "it" playing in that sentence? Is it a personal pronoun (and thus the infant has grounds for feeling offended) or a dummy pronoun (and thus those who perceive a politeness issue are just misunderstanding the grammar)?
57268
I know this question is asked over and over, but I still can't understand anything.  Say I'm introduced to a random father of two and I want to know what's the probability that both his children are boys. Currently:   BB BG GB GG ⇢ 1/4   Where the first letter represents the younger sibling and the second letter represents the older sibling. So far so good.  (1) Now the father tells me that his youngest child is boy:   BB BG GB GG ⇢ 1/2   (2) If, instead, he told me that at least one of his children is a boy:   BB BG GB GG ⇢ 1/3   Makes sense, kind of.  (3) But if the father brought one of his children with him without telling whether he's the younger child or the older child and that child happened to be a boy, I think I could have still honestly arrived to the 50/50 probability:   BB BG GB GG ⇢ 1/2   Where the first letter represents the boy I've just seen and the second letter represents his sibling.  Now, say, the father first told me that he has at least 1 boy. That's the case (2).  Then the father called (one of) the boy(s) here, and somehow the situation turned into the case (3)!  What exactly has changed? What kind of new information did I just get? OK, I've seen (one of) the boy(s), but the only thing it tells me is that one of the children is a boy, which I already knew from the father's own words.  It seems to me that anything he could bring that has some kind of relationship to (one of) the boy(s) so as to allow me to uniquely identify him would work: a photo, a footprint on a beach, etc. Even if he simply told me that he has just thought about one of his children who is a boy, I think I could still have done this:   BB BG GB GG ⇢ 1/2   Where the first letter represents the boy the father has thought about at XX/XX/XXXX XX:XX:XX UTC, and the second letter represents his other child.  Is this magic? Or am I just stupid?  Can't I simply construct such a way of identification myself? For example, let the first letter represent the youngest boy (the only boy if there's just one), and let the other letter represent the other child. Since the father is not an abstract entity, this would uniquely identify some child.    I don't see how changing the representation changes things.  Say I saw one of the father's on a photo behind a thick blurry glass that doesn't let me see whether it's a girl or a boy. Therefore:   BB BG GB GG ⇢ 1/4   Where the first letter represents the child on the photo and the second letter represents the other child.  Now the glass is removed and I can see the photo clearly and it's indeed a boy:   BB BG GB GG ⇢ 1/2
51861
With all the "Royal baby" craze comes something that really confuses me. All the news media used pretty much the same sentence to make the announcement:      The Duchess of Cambridge has been delivered of a son.   A couple of questions:   Why not "The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son" or "delivered a baby", or something along those lines? Why is "of" used in this structure, and what purpose does it serve?   From a non-native English speaker's perspective, this sentence doesn't seem to make any sense at all to me.
66437
I have seen people using "This one is Daddy's" with the word "one" before a form of the verb be. I am confused about which is more accurate, to use:     This is Daddy's.   or     This one is Daddy's.   Hope you can address my concerns, thank you.
6758
Can you explain more?  I do not know when we can use them in the sentence.  Can we use them instead of each other?     They have a beautiful home.   They have a beautiful house.
71153
Your phone is ringing and your daughter picked up the phone but she hasn't answered the call. Then do you ask her:     Who is it?   or      Who are they?   And when she tells you, would she say:     I don't know who it is"   or     I don't know who they are?   If none of the above isn't natural, then what is it?
2331
Is this comment that I made  grammatically correct?  In Latin, when a group of males and females is combined, the neutral plural form is not used, but rather the masculine is.
110446
Someone introduced himself to us.  After that, when we look back and say what he said, which is right to say?     What did he say his name is?      What did he say his name was?   I think the first one is plausible because his name is always XX, but I'm not sure. Please tell me which is allowed.
51489
Which answer is correct?       Tony _______to have children until his little daughter was born. After   she won his heart, he decided he wanted a big family.       A. didn't want.   B. hadn't wanted.   This is a multiple choice question from the Understanding and Using English Grammar Workbook 3rd edition by Betty Azar. To me, both answers are correct as I cannot see the diffrence. Please show me the wrong option to delete.
79291
In his book section 176, 3rd ed., Swan says:     Elder brother/sister are used when a person has only one   brother/sister who is older; eldest is used when there are more. An   elder son/daughter is the older of  two; an eldest son/daughter is the   oldest of two or more.   That was not clear enough; I don't see that . Does that mean you can only use it if you have only one sister that is older than you (you don't have two or more sisters who are older than you ), or you can only use it when you talk about the youngest sister (out of two or more) that is older than you?
11830
I would like to say something like     The boy, Adam's, favorite toy was a bike.   What is the proper way to say this?
14838
Which is the correct use of these two words, and in which context should one be used rather than the other?
120256
At some time in the conception of a child, gender is determined by the X or Y chromosomes given by the male. This is, from my perception, a random selection, like the decaying atom.   Like Schrodinger's cat in a box, I am unable to know the gender of my child until I observe it through an ultrasound. Is my baby both a male and a female until I observe it?
6167
Is only one of them correct? Are they used in different situations? Or are they interchangeable?
42809
"When he found his seat on the plane, Sam recognized the person who was sitting in the seat next to his. It? She? was a woman he knew."  Which is more common/natural? Isn't 'it' more correct – grammatically speaking – than 'she', since 'a person' can be a 'he' or a 'she', and obviously you cannot use the singular 'they' here?
106809
Consider the sentence:     "She sees him not so much as her uncle as her friend."   Is this sentence correct? I feel something is missing, or perhaps I am disturbed by the extra 'as'. Compare with:     "He is not so much her friend as (he is) her uncle."   What do you suggest?
90594
Height and Weight — How to write them when abbreviations are not used.  He was a 6-foot 5-inch man.   (Not: 6-foot-5-inch man, with three hyphens.)  She gave birth to a 7-pound 11-ounce baby.  (Not: 7-pound-11-ounce baby, with three hyphens.)  And, it should be, I believe:  He is 6 feet 5 inches tall. (Not: 6 feet, 5 inches tall.)  The baby weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces. (Not: 7 pounds, 11 ounces.)  Despite variations in punctuation, I believe that we do not separate singular units of measurements like these with commas.  Good to all?