A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that
in Spanish,unlike English, nouns are designated as
either masculine or feminine.

''House'' for instance, is feminine: ''la casa.''
''Pencil,'' however, is masculine: "el lapiz.''

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 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 retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you
 find yourself spending half your paycheck on
 accessories for it.

(No chuckling... this gets better!)

The women's group, however, concluded that
computers should be Masculine (''el computer''),
because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to
 turn them on; this normally doesn't take long!!)
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.