What is the sex of a computer
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 - 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.
2. They have a lot of data but they are still clueless
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem
4. 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 Women Won
[This message has been edited by confused (edited November 05, 2001).]