> unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as
> masculine or feminine. For example, "House" in French, is
> feminine........"La maison". "Pencil" in French, is masculine...."le
> crayon"
> One puzzled student asked, "What gender is a computer?" The teacher did
> not know, and the word was not 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 a
> feminine noun.
> Both groups were required 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 review;
> 4. 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:
> 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 gotten a better model.
* The women won.
Is this heaven?...
