It only has a negative connotation because it is generally an “animal” word and humans believe themselves special and somehow above and separate from animals. It is the same with referring to someone using an object pronoun. Call someone “it” in English and see how fast they lose their shit. Like, mother fucker, you warp spacetime and have volume, you are a fucking object.
It is used and has a negative connotation.
It only has a negative connotation because it is generally an “animal” word and humans believe themselves special and somehow above and separate from animals. It is the same with referring to someone using an object pronoun. Call someone “it” in English and see how fast they lose their shit. Like, mother fucker, you warp spacetime and have volume, you are a fucking object.
Yeah, but the negative connotation is the exclusion of agency
People already refer to their (differently aged) groups of children a litter. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used in a negative way, though