OT (joke): French lessons

[Joost Kremers]

On Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 07:47:08AM -0600, Edscott Wilson García wrote:
> 
> Good one!  FTR, in Spanish the computer is femenine in Mexico (la 
> computadora), while in Spain it is masculine (el ordenador). 

does this mean that mexico is a male society, while spain is a
feminine society? ;-)
 
> On Vie 05 Abr 2002 03:57, Olivier Fourdan wrote:
> > 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.
> 
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-- 
Joost Kremers
University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Department of Arabic and Islam

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