What gender is computer?

What gender is computer?
vSnail 发布于：2007-08-02 13:02

A language teacher was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or 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 was not 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 a feminine noun. Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The men's group decided that computer 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 review.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheque on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine "le computer") 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 realise that if you had waited a little longer you could have gotten a better model.

计算机的性别

　　一位语言学家对她的班级解释说，跟英语不一样，法语里面的名词根据语法都分配有性别，要么是阳性，要么是阴性。她说，比如“粉笔”和“铅笔”这样的一些词都有性别上的联想，尽管在英语当中这些词都是中性的。

　　一位学生大惑不解，因此举手提问：“那计算机属于什么性别？”老师也不知道，因此将全班分成两组，让他们来决定计算机应该属于阳性还是阴性。一组由班上的女生构成，另一组由男生构成。两个组都要求拿出4条理由来说明自己的意见。

　　女生那一组作出结论，认为计算机属于阳性，因为：
为了获取它们的注意力，你必须让它们打开；
它们有很多数据，但仍然很笨；
它们应该能够帮助你的，但有一半的时间它们本身都是问题；
等你刚刚迷上一个，立即发现再等一阵子的话，一定能够得到更好的型号。

　　另外一方面，男生认为计算机属于阴性，而且肯定如此，因为：
除了制作者以外没有谁知道它们的内在逻辑；
它们与其它计算机进行交流时使用的语言是其它任何人都听不懂的；
哪怕你犯的最小的一个错误都会长期存储在内存中，便于以后检索；
等你刚刚迷上一个，马上会发现自己必须把一半的工资拿去购买配件。