Saturday, July 5, 2008

The Computer



I have a joke for you today....thought it would keep a smile in your week-end. It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood. Smile!


A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine of 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, males and females, and asked them to decided 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 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 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.

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; 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.

Who do you think won?

10 comments:

Cathy said...

LOL...I love this and they are definitely male! I am going to send an email of this to my sister. She will love it also.

Granny Annie said...

I think a little more than half the check goes for accessories.

Cute:-)

Constance said...

Sheesh - I'd be betting that a computer has a little of each in it !!!

Hope you are having a good holiday weekend, Kacey !

How are you and hubby feeling ?

molly said...

Not to let the side down or anything---but going solely on how loud I laughed---I'd have to say the men won and a computer is la computadora....

Big Dave T said...

Well, at least you're not just picking on men.

The Curmudgeon said...

I tried to cheat on this by asking my wife (a Spanish teacher) -- but I couldn't get hold of her.

Drats.

Very funny.

The Curmudgeon said...

OK -- now I know.

The Spanish word for computer is female. As is the Spanish word for monitor.

But the words for keyboard, mouse and program are all male. (Even though the word for "program" is "programma" -- and if that's misspelled it's my fault. It definitely ends in an "a" though -- even though its "male." I didn't ask my wife to spell it out for me.)

Carine-what's cooking? said...

Kacey, how timely for me-I am now sharing a male computer w/ my hubby since my own completely died from overwork, evidently-a completely female trait. LOL, :-(
I loved this piece.

CiCi said...

This cracked us both up when we read it. Thanks for putting this up here. I really like this one. We were sitting here laughing out loud. So thanks for the laughter.

molly said...

Hi Kacey---Hope all is well with you since you haven't posted in quite a while....fingers crossed you're just taking a break! Molly