A language instructor was explaining to her class that
in Spanish, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated
as masculine or feminine.
"House," in Spanish, is feminine-"la
casa."
"Pencil," in Spanish, is masculine-"el lapiz."
One puzzled student asked, "What gender is
computer?"
The teacher did not know, and the word wasn't in
her Spanish 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 feminine noun.
Both groups were required to give four reasons for
their recommendation.
The men's group decided that computers should definitely
be of the feminine gender ("la computadora"), because:
The women's group, however, concluded that computers
should be masculine (el computador"), because:
The women won.