A language instructor was explaining to her class that in
French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are
grammatically designated as masculine or feminine. “House,” in
French, is feminine - “la maison.” “Pencil,” in French, is
masculine “le crayon.”
One puzzled student asked, “What gender is ‘computer’?”
The teacher did not know, and the word wasn’t in her French
dictionary. So for fun she split the class into two groups
appropriately enough, by gender, and asked them to decide
whether “computer” should be a masculine or feminine noun. Both
groups were required to give four reasons for their
recommendation.
The men’s group decided that computers should definitely be of
the feminine gender (“la computer”), because:
- No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
- The native language they use to communicate with other
computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; - Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for
possible later retrieval; and - As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself
spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be
masculine (“le computer”), because:
- In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on;
- They have a lot of data but they are still clueless;
- They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the
time they ARE the problem; and - As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you’d
waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.
- “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched…but are felt in the heart.” *