OT (joke): French lessons

[Olivier Fourdan]

A language instructor was explaining to her class that in
French, nouns, unlike their English counterparts, are
grammatically designated as masculine and feminine.

"House," in French, is feminine- "la maison."

"Pencil," in French, is masculine- "le crayon."

One puzzled student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

The teacher did not know, and the word wasn't in her French
dictionary. So for fun she split the class into two groups,
appropriately enough, by gender and asked them to decide
whether "computer" should be a masculine or feminine noun.

Both groups were required to give four reasons for their
recommendation.

The men's group decided the computers 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; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find
yourself spending half your pay check on accessories for it.



The women's group, however, concluded that computers should
be masculine("le computer"). because:


1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them
on.

2. They have a lot of data but they are still clueless.

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'd
waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better
model.

-- 
Olivier               <fourdan at xfce.org>            http://www.xfce.org
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