Subject: Computer, Male or Female?
From: Unicorn (unicorn@indenial.com)
Date: Thu Jan 04 2001 - 05:24:36 EST
"Computer, Male or Female?"
A language instructor was explaining to her class
that French nouns, unlike their English counterparts,
are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.
Things like "chalk" or "pencil," she described, would
have a gender association although in English these
words were neutral. Puzzled, one student raised his
hand and asked, "What gender is a computer?" The
teacher wasn't certain which it was, and so she divided
the class into two groups and asked them to decide if a
computer should be masculine or feminine. One group
composed of the women in the class, and the other, of
men. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for
their recommendation.
*************************************
"Women's Decision"
The group of women concluded that computers
should be referred to in the masculine gender
because:
1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn
them on.
2. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve your
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
had a better model.
*************************************
"Men's Decision"
The men, on the other hand, decided that computers
should definitely be referred to in the feminine gender
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 your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term
memory for later retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you
find yourself spending half your paycheck on
accessories for it.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu Feb 01 2001 - 00:00:01 EST