Dear Geist,

What's your policy on using gender pronouns when referring to animals? What are writers doing? Do you have a policy in your house style? What are your colleagues doing? What do agents and book publishers want?

—Bob G., Cyberspace

Dear Bob,

Both AP (Associated Press Stylebook, used by news writers and other journalists) and APA (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, used in scholarly and academic publishing) recommend that any animal with a name should be assigned a gender pronoun. AP recommends a name for any animal with a known gender as well. Some style guides also recommend “he” or “she” for an animal whose name (such as buck for a male deer) is gender-specific; for any animal whose gender can be determined by sight; and for an animal in a situation where the neutral “it” is too remote: if you're attending the birth of a calf, for instance, or being treed by a bear. Hundreds of other scenarios are possible. We haven't enshrined this matter in the Geist house style, because there are too many variables and a lot depends on context. If you are sending material to an agent or publisher you don’t know, choose a standard and use it consistently in the manuscript. Agents and publishers don’t expect you to know the fine points of their house style—unless they say so in their submission guidelines online.

The practice of assigning a gender pronoun to an animal is more common every year. For some people it's simply more natural, perhaps because many more homes have pets. For people concerned directly with animal rights, it's also political: when we speak about animals, and to them, in a more “personal” way, we have more empathy for them, and we treat them with more respect. It's true that language shapes culture as well as responding to culture, so perhaps those people are right. Either way, it can only be good for people to be kinder to all living things.

—The Editors