Wiregrass Seniors Magazine September 2018 SEPTEMBER ISSUE(1) | Page 7

WiregrassSeniorsMagazine.com Gender of Computers A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her 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 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 boy'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. Every mistake is stored in long term memory for verbatum retrival at any later date. 4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending a fortune on accessories for it. The girls'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 while, you could have gotten a newer model with more memory that lobeys voice commands. Page 7