Re: FRI Computers in Spanish
From: Meenan, Anna, Kevin (annam@uic.edu)
Sat Mar 11 21:52:49 2006
The ladies in our clinic call them "pechos" which
I know means more like chest than breast, but
that's what they say here in the midwest.
Ana Meenan, MD
>
>Breasts are "los senos" - masculine - the more vulgar "tits" would be
>"tetas" - femenine - and so on...go figure.....
>
>Ef
>
> At Sat, 11 Mar 2006, Anna Meenan, MD wrote:
>>
>>Speaking of masculine v. feminine nouns, perhaps you or Ef could answer
>>a question I posed to my translator in prenatal clinic the other day:
>>El utero? (as opposed to la utera?) How can uterus, of all things, be a
>>MASCULINE noun? No comprendo.
>>
>>Ana Meenan, MD
>>
>>At Sat, 11 Mar 2006, DoctorJoe@aol.com wrote:
>>>
>>>Maybe an oldie, but still muy bueno.
>>>
>>>Pepe
>>>
>>>Ý
>>>
>>> Ý
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>>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 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.
>>>
>>>(THIS GETS BETTER!)
>>>
>>>l
>>>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 littl
>>>longer, you could have gotten a better model.
>>>
>>>The women won.
>
>--
>ì The greatest obstacle to knowledge is not ignorance,
>it is the illusion of knowledge.î Daniel J. Boorstin - Historian
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