Spanish Lessons and the Debate about a computer

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 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.

       The women won.