A Spanish teacher was explaining to her adult class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. “House for instance, is feminine: ‘la casa.’ Pencil, however, is masculine: ‘el lapiz.'”
A student then 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 adult group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
Here’s what they said.
The men’s group decided that ‘computer’ should definitely be of the feminine gender (‘la computadora’), 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 anyone else.
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself having to get accessories you have never heard of or thought you needed and can’t see the point of.
The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (‘el computador’), 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.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have got a better model.
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