🧠Individual, Someone, They, Who

Sentiment

If sentient animals are not someone what are they? A thing? Like a rock?

When you look at one of these sentient animals in the eye, you can see that "there's someone in there". You can see that they are sentient. They aren't cold robots or inanimate objects. They are someone. Furthermore, a big part of why systemic animal abuse continues is through objectification/denial of sentience to these individuals. By calling them 'it' instead of 'them', 'something' instead of 'someone', and 'that' instead of 'who', we implicitly contribute to that denial of sentience.

🧠Denial of Sentience🧠Sentience

Someone, not Something

"The word someone refers a person or an individual" https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/someone

Individual

Individual, n, 1(a)(2) "a particular being or thing as distinguished from a class, species, or collection: such as a single organism as distinguished from a group" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/individual

Individual, n, 2 "an indivisible entity" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/individual

Individual, adj, 2 "having marked individuality" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/individual

Individual, adj, 3 "existing as a distinct entity" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/individual

Individual, adj "existing and considered separately from the other things or people in a group" https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/individual

"The word individual is all about being a single entity that cannot be divided." https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/individual

"An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual

Another

Other, n, 2a "one that remains of two or more" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/other Other, adj, 1a "being the one (as of two or more) remaining or not included held on with one hand and waved with the other one" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/other Other, adj, 1b "being the one or ones distinct from that or those first mentioned or implied" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/other

They, not It

They, pronoun, 1 "those ones: those people, animals, or things" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they They, pronoun, 3a "used with a singular indefinite pronoun antecedent" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they They, pronoun, 1 "You use they to refer to a group of people, animals, or things." https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/they They, pronoun, 1 "people, animals or things that have already been mentioned or are easily identified" https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/they They, pronoun, A1 "used as the subject of a verb to refer to people, animals, or things already mentioned or, more generally, to a group of people not clearly described" https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/they They, pronoun, 1 "nominative plural of he, she, and it" (He/she can of course refer to animals.) https://www.dictionary.com/browse/they "they is a third-person pronoun relating to a grammatical subject" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They

Who, not That

"-> used as a function word to introduce a relative clause -> used especially in reference to persons but also in reference to groups or to animals" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/who "that refers to persons or things, [...] who chiefly to persons and sometimes to animals" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/who