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 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: 1. No one but their
creator understands their internal logic; 2. The language that they
use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to
everyone else; 3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term
memory for possible later retrieval; and 4. As soon as you make a
commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your pay check on
accessories for it.
The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be
masculine (“le computer”), because: 1. In order to do anything with
them, you have to turn them on; 2. They have a lot of data but still
can’t think for themselves; 3. They are supposed to help you solve
problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and 4. As soon as
you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little
longer, you could have bought a better model.
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