"IT"

I was just mulling over the joyful phrase, "It's a boy!"
It's a baby, but is "it" a boy?

Just a thought, but...once you find out what sex your baby is, shouldn't the phrasing be,

"He's a boy" or "She's a girl"? Shouldn't that be printed on banners and teddy bears all over the world?

Since by figuring out what kind of person you're having, you eliminate the cause to refer to said person as "it"?

Scenario:
-What is that in your belly?/How far along are you?/WOW, are you PREGNANT?
-I'm pregnant./I'm due in October./ Yes. Thank you for noticing.

The problem is inherent in the next question:
-What is it?

If we all really thought about this, we would respond--it's a baby. A small human. IT's kind of a stupid question really, as even though you don't know the gender, a person is never referred to as an "it" in English.


Let's put this in another context.
Is that fish male or female?
It's a male.
Check for pronoun correctness:
The fish swam around the pond.
It swam around the pond.
Both make sense.

Is that baby male or female? (or however you want to ask.)
It's a boy.
Check for pronoun correctness:
The boy human swam around the pond.
It swam around the pond. Then it dried itself off, it ate a sandwich, and it hugged it's mom.
Unless you're observing from another planet, I'm gonna go with no.

I'm not sure who started this idiom, but grammatically it is a genuine failure. If the pronoun that should be used to describe someone is still a mystery (he or she), then we shouldn't use one until the appropriate time. If you'd like to join my hair-splitting campaign, you may ask your pregnant friends the following questions, so that they may give the following grammatically correct replies.

Have you discovered what gender baby you're having?
Why, yes I have. The baby is a girl.

Do you know what color (proper use of what!) you'll be painting the nursery?
Yellow. We don't want to know what gender the baby is.

Is your baby a boy or a girl?
My baby is a sweet little boy, and he likes to kick me in the bladder.

If you don't care, expect one of these weird responses at some point:

Do you know what you're having?
The doctor told me I should be having a baby, but I don't trust him.

Is it a boy or a girl?
What, my turtle? Turtle's a boy.

Do you think you know what it is?
Well, it makes me nauseous at times, and gain weight at others...could be Taco Bell.

Pronouns are important, people. Syntax is power. Babies are people, not things.
STAY IN SCHOOL FOOLS.