English, nouns are designated as either masculine
or feminine.
"House" for instance, is feminine:
"la casa."
"Pencil," however, is masculine: "el
lapiz."
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 its 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;
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find
yourself
spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
(No chuckling... this gets better!)
The women's group, however, concluded that
computers should be
Masculine ("el 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.
