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I'm tutoring some primary school students in China. In their textbook, one of the example sentences

Who's that man/woman?

He's my father.

She's my mother.

I know those sentences are grammatically correct, but I feel I never here expressed in this way when I lived in the U.S. It feels much more natural to me to simply ask "Who is he/ she?"

boy pointing and asking a girl question

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    It depends on context “Who is that man walking with your sister?” “Who is that?” “Who is he?” “Who is that man?” can all be perfectly natural sounding.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 13:14
  • Who’s she—the cat’s mother?
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 13:44
  • "Who is he/she?" would sound very strange and confusing if the person did not already know who you were talking about. We normally only use he/she/it to indicate someone or something already specified.
    – stangdon
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 14:26
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    As an aside “Who’s that girl?” is the title of at least three different songs and a movie.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 17:04

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To this Brit: "Who's that woman?" is perfectly natural. However, through my childhood I had it drummed into me that referring to people in such a manner was rude.

"Is that man the postman?" I said at age 4 to my mother, pointing at a person walking down the road that I thought I knew.

"Rude!" she scolded me, without explaining why. Suddenly the rules of communication had changed without warning. Many natural and easy constructions were forbidden, including "She did it," pointing to Grannie who had performed some mundane task for me that I lacked the dexterity to do for myself.

I grew to learn later in life that such rules and regulations are worthless lumber whose sole purpose is to inform the rest of the world that one is of greater social importance than people who don't use pointless linguistic circumlocutions rather than straightforward communication.

So, feel free to use "Who's that woman?" and "She did it," at will, understanding that the only people you may offend are snobbish middle-class social climbers.

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  • I was likewise told that, when talking about people politely, especially in their presence, a woman is a 'lady', and a man is a 'gentleman'. Furthemore, one does not say 'she' about a lady. This was more than 60 years ago, but people much younger than me still follow these conventions.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 16:49
  • @MichaelHarvey I gather that may indeed be the case. I suppose it depends what circles you move in.
    – Prime Mover
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 18:30
  • Now there's a barbed comment if ever I heard one.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 18:45
  • @MichaelHarvey Sorry, wasn't meant to be personal. Suppose I should have said "what circles one moves in." My own circle is a bunch of blunt-speaking non-nonsense classless oiks with artistic pretensions. No flim-flam flowery flutings for them.
    – Prime Mover
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 21:20
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    Well, I'll be candid too, then. My father was solid middle class, my mother 'respectable working class' and from her side there was a lot of the genteel social-climbing stuff that you alluded to in your answer. Better Surrey than Lambeth, and better still Sussex. I have spent most of my adult life trying to throw it off, but some remnants linger.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Jun 17, 2021 at 21:45

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