gender neutral - Which pronoun to refer to "person"? It? He or She? They?


"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?



Answer



It was a woman he knew is perfectly good, but a different construction from she was a woman he knew: It there is not a gender-neutral personal pronoun* but a dummy or presentative subject: it can even be used with plurals (Who was at the door? It was everybody from next door), because it doesn't refer.


There is no universally accepted gender-neutral personal pronoun in English; I prefer they, but some people object to it. But in this context, the gender is known, and I think all English speakers would use she (unless they used the presentative it).


*It is rarely used to refer to people, except (by some) to babies whose sex they don't know (Others object to this usage).


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