Actually, it’s just a funny, possibly sexist (though cutting both ways) bit of email humor that crossed my inbox:<\/p>\n
*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n
A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.\u00a0 “House” for instance, is feminine: la casa<\/em>. “Pencil,” however, is masculine: el lapiz<\/em>.<\/p>\n A student asked, “What gender is ‘computer’?”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The male group decided that “computer” should definitely be of the feminine gender (la computadora)<\/em>, because:<\/p>\n The female students, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (el computador)<\/em>, because:<\/p>\n *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n Yes, there’s all sorts of awful there, but it engendered enough chuckles here to be worth blogging.<\/p>\n For the record, la computadora <\/em>is feminine, but el ordenador <\/em>is masculine. Both seem to be used for “computer” (and provoke some mild controversy between proponents one way or the other). It seems el ordenador <\/em>is more used in Spain, la computadora <\/em>in Latin America (but the opposite gender versions can also be found — el computador<\/em> is found more in the south of Latin America, e.g., in Chile).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
\n