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February 18, 2016

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How a single pronoun choice reflects our shifting attitudes towards animals

Last month, a steer escaped from a slaughterhouse in the New York City borough of Queens. Video of the animal trotting down a busy street was soon featured on many media outlets.

For those who care about animals, the story has a happy ending: The steer was captured and taken to a sanctuary, where he will live out the remainder of his natural life. To me, however, the most interesting aspect of the story was the language that the media used to refer to the animal. The New York Times had a headline that read: 鈥淐ow Who Escaped New York Slaughterhouse Finds Sanctuary.鈥

Animal advocates have long struggled against the convention of reserving 鈥渨ho鈥 for people, and using 鈥渢hat鈥 or 鈥渨hich鈥 for animals. Not all languages make this distinction, but in English, to refer to 鈥渢he cow that escaped鈥 seems to deny the animal鈥檚 agency.

It would be premature to conclude that the New York Times article indicates a shift in usage. Rather, it seems to show uncertainty, for the first line of the article refers to 鈥淎 cow that was captured by police.鈥 I asked Philip Corbett, the standards editor for the New York Times, if the use of 鈥渃ow who鈥 reflected a change of policy. He told me that the Times style manual suggested using 鈥渨ho鈥 only for a named or personified animal. The manual gives the example 鈥淭he dog, which was lost, howled鈥 and contrasts this with 鈥淎delaide, who was lost, howled.鈥

Corbett added that the editors may have been caught between the two examples. The cow, or rather steer, did not have a name at the time of the escape, but was given one 鈥 Freddie 鈥 by Mike Stura, the founder of Freddie鈥檚 new home, Skylands Animal Sanctuary & Rescue.

Among media reporting the story, some used 鈥渨ho鈥 and others 鈥渢hat.鈥 A little searching on Google also shows mixed usage. Put in 鈥渃ow who鈥 and you get nearly 400,000 hits, compared to nearly 600,000 for 鈥渃ow that.鈥 If you substitute 鈥渄og鈥 for 鈥渃ow,鈥 the numbers get closer 鈥 more than eight million for 鈥渄og who鈥 and over ten million for 鈥渄og that.鈥

This could be because most of the dog stories are about people鈥檚 pets, who have names. Yet, if Google is any indication, chimpanzees, who are rarely pets, are referred to as 鈥渨ho鈥 almost twice as often as they are referred to as 鈥渢hat.鈥 Their similarity to us, and their undeniable individuality, must be playing a role.

Using 鈥渨ho鈥 apparently is becoming more acceptable even for animals who are not pets and are less likely than great apes to be thought of as individuals. It鈥檚 hard to connect canned tuna with an individual fish, let alone to think of that fish as a person, but the writer Sean Thomason recently tweeted about 鈥渢he tuna who died to get put in a can that wound up in the back of my cabinet until past expiration and which I just threw away.鈥

Many social movements recognize that language matters because it both reflects and reinforces injustices that need to be remedied. Feminists have provided evidence that the supposedly gender-neutral use of 鈥渕an鈥 and 鈥渉e鈥 to include females has the effect of making women invisible.

Linguistic reforms

Several remedies have been proposed, the most successful of which may be the use of the plural 鈥渢hey鈥 in contexts like 鈥淓ach person should collect their belongings.鈥 Terms used for members of racial minorities, and for people with disabilities, have also been challenged, to such an extent that it can be hard to keep up with the terms preferred by those in these categories.

The use of 鈥渨ho鈥 for animals ranks alongside these other linguistic reforms. In most legal systems today, animals are property, just as tables and chairs are. They may be protected under animal welfare legislation, but that is not enough to prevent them being things, because antiquities and areas of natural beauty are also protected.

English usage should change to make it clear that animals are fundamentally more like us than they are like tables and chairs, paintings and mountains.

The law is starting to show signs of change. In 1992, Switzerland became the first country to include a statement about protecting the dignity of animals in its constitution; Germany followed ten years later. In 2009, the European Union amended its fundamental treaty to include a statement that because animals are sentient beings, the EU and its member states must, in formulating policies for agriculture, fisheries, research, and several other areas, 鈥減ay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals.鈥

In a language like English, which implicitly categorizes animals as things rather than persons, adopting the personal pronoun would embody the same recognition 鈥 and remind us who animals really are.

Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne. His books include Animal Liberation, The Life You Can Save, The Most Good You Can Do, and, most recently, Famine, Affluence and Morality. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2016.www.project-syndicate.org


 

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