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Old 09-28-2008, 08:21 PM
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Default Is Computer masculine or feminine?

An Italian Teacher was explaining to her class that in Italian, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la Casa.'
'Boy,' however, is masculine: 'il ragazzo.'

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 mens' 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 the 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.

(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The womens' group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ('il 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.

Tell this to all the smart women you know...and all the men that have a sense of humour
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Old 09-29-2008, 01:50 AM
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The womens' group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ('il computador')
Italian is the only Latin language which never translated COMPUTER: 'computador' (Spanish) 'ordinateur' (French).
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Old 09-29-2008, 10:10 PM
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Italian is the only Latin language which never translated COMPUTER: 'computador' (Spanish) 'ordinateur' (French).
Wll, max, that's not exact: in Italian we used the words 'computatore' ('50s), 'calcolatore' ('70s), 'elaboratore elettronico' ('80s) and 'computer' (since the '80s-'90s to nowadays)... I'm afraid Italian is the only romance language which changed the term every decade!
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Old 09-30-2008, 01:54 AM
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Wll, max, that's not exact: in Italian we used the words 'computatore' ('50s), 'calcolatore' ('70s), 'elaboratore elettronico' ('80s) and 'computer' (since the '80s-'90s to nowadays)... I'm afraid Italian is the only romance language which changed the term every decade!
In non so quale epoca c'era anche "CERVELLO ELETTRONICO" ...mamma mia che paura !!!
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Old 10-21-2008, 03:49 PM
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I have heard another version, all borrowed (foreign to a given language) words are masculan by definision. Italian language borrowed "Il computer" from English so it should be masculan.
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