A very oldie but goodie.

Phil.


> Subject: Computer:  Male or Female?
>
>
> As you may well know, Hebrew nouns have a gender. When the time came
> to translate the word "Computer" to Hebrew, its gender had to be decided.
> They established two expert committees, one of men and the other of women.
> Each committee was instructed to decide on the machine's gender -
> "Machshev" (male form) or "Machshevet" (female form), and to give five
> main reasons.
>      The women's committee recommended that computers be male, because:
>      1. To get their attention, you have to turn them on.
>      2. They will usually do what they are asked, but nothing more, and
they
> won't think of doing it themselves.
>      3. They are supposed to solve your problems, but most of the time
> they are the problem.
>      4. As soon as you are committed to one, you find out that had you
> waited just a little bit longer, you would have got a better
> model.
>      5. They usually become outdated in five years and need to be
> replaced, but some of the users feel that they have
> already invested so much in that
> darn machine they put up with an imperfect model.
>      On the other hand, the men's committee claimed the computers should
be
> female (what else), because:
>      1. No one but the Creator understands their inner logic.
>      2. The language they use to communicate among themselves is
> incomprehensible to anyone else.
>      3. Even your slightest error is maintained in long-term memory for
use
> at a later date.
>      4. The error message "Bad command or file name" is about as
> informative as "If you don't know why I am mad at
> you, then I'm certainly not going to tell you!!!"
>      5. Once you are committed to one, you find yourself spending half
> your payroll on accessories for her.
>