Posted: May 15, 2008, 9:41 AM CST
>>A French teacher was explaining to her class that in French, unlike
English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.
"House" for instance, is feminine-"la maison." "Pencil", however, is
masculine-"le crayon."
>
>A student asked, "What gender is ’computer’?"
>
>Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two
groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves
whether computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group
was asked to give four reasons for their recommendation.
>
>The men’s group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the
feminine gender ("la computer"), because:
>
>1. no one but their creator understands their internal logic;
>2. the native language 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 paycheck on accessories for it.
>
>(No chuckling guys... this gets better!!!)
>
>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 gotten a better model.
>
>The women won!