El Computador o La Computadora

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'", she explained.

So, a student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male & 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 computadora') because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate to 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.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine, ('el 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 waiting a little while longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Thanks, Wendy for the EXCELLENT joke!