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DATELINE HISTORY: Jan. 9, 2004 - Bush to announce plans for a Moon base as staging area for manned Mars mission.
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LE DISQUE & LA DISQUETTE
Pat Hayden forwarded the following joke:
A French teacher was explaining to her college class that in French, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine
or feminine. House is feminine "la maison." Pencil is masculine "le crayon."
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 their
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 review.
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 (le computer) 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.
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!
Bonnie Swank responded:
Dad,
This was very funny! Just to add a little complexity to it I have some more information.
The French equivalent of
the English word computer is not a cognate. The French try to invent new French words for modern inventions instead
of saying the English word with a French accent (though they are not always successfull).
The French word hides its
gender in a comma as they sometimes do. The noun ending is often the clue that indicates gender as follows:
The computer
= L'ordinateur. The -eur, as in the word monsieur, generally indicates the masculine.
So if you
wanted to say, "I work with the computer every day," it would translate:
Je travaile avec l'ordinateur tous les
jours.
However, the word for computer science is feminine (though it also hides its gender in the comma).
The
science of computing = L'informatique. The -que ending is frequently an indicator of the feminine.
So,
if you wanted to say, "I work with computers," it would translate:
Je travaile dans l'informatique.
This
word also refers to data processing.
One might chose to surmise from this that the machine itself is masculine and
the art of manipulating it feminine. This idea is unfortunately belied by the words for software and program (both masculine).
E-mail, micro-chip, CPU and floppy disk are the few feminine nouns in a sea of masculine ones.
Here are some French computer words for fun:
The software = Le logiciel
The websurfer = L'internaut
(masculine)
The hardware = Le materiel
The program = Le programme
The (hard)disk = Le disque
The
monitor = Le moniteur
The printer = L'imprimeur (masculine)
The keyboard = Le clavier
The mouse
pad = Le tapis-souris
The (floppy) disk = La disquette
The e-mail = La courrielle
The CPU =
L'unite centrale de traitement (feminine)
The mouse = La souris
The micro-chip = La puce (also
means "flea" and is used as a pet name like "sweetie")
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In America I saw more than America. (Alexis de Toqueville)
DATELINE HISTORY: January 11, 1805 - Michigan Territory was created.
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NOUS AUTRES AMERICANS
When the French disapproved of America's invasion of Iraq - and were pilloried by return e-mail as a nation of sissies
looking for a place to surrender - some old heart strings were being yanked about. Our two nations' histories are woven into
an unrippable frabric... Although it's been strained since WW II by the French having sublimated Marxism into a philosophical
principle & socialist revolution, resulting recently in their attempt to suppress freedom of religious expression. That's
un-American! More precisely: it violates the best Spirit of Democracy, and have our French cousins not valued that since the
old days?
I'm enjoying one of my Christmas gifts, Alexis de Toqueville's A Fortnight in the Wilderness (Originally Quinze
Jours dans le Desert, there being no French word for Wilderness). It's excerpted from his 1831 journal, upon which he
based his Democracy in America, published four years later. De Toqueville was a nobleman, a jurist, and one of the
finest investigative reporters/commentators the Lord ever allowed to live. Alexis arrived in the Michigan Territory, videocam
with stereo mike parked square atop his neck and operating smoothly. Here are a few film clips from pioneer America:
To get information was not as easy as one might have thought... You want to see forests, our hosts said, smiling,
go straight ahead and you will find what you want. They are there, all right, around the new roads and well trod paths.
As for Indians, you will see only too many in our public places and in the streets; there is no need to go very far for that.
Those here are at least beginning to get civilized and have a less savage look... To break through almost impenetrable
forests, to cross deep rivers, to brave pestelential marshes, to sleep out in the damp woods: those are exertions that the
American readily contemplates - if it is a question of earning a guinea; for that is the point. But that one should do these
things from curiosity is more than his mind can take in.
...
Such a cabin generally has but one window, at which perhaps a muslin curtain is hanging, for in these parts where necessities
are not seldom lacking, superfluities often abound. A resinous fire crackles on the hearth of beaten earth, and better than
the daylight, lights up the inside of the place. Over this rustic fire one sees trophies of war or hunt: a long rifle, a deerskin,
some eagle's feathers. To the right of the chimney a map of the United States is often stretched, and the draft that blows
through the gaps in the wall keeps raising and fluttering it. By it on a single shelf of ill-squared planks are a few tattered
books; there one finds a Bible, with its cloth and boards already worn out by the piety of two generations, a prayerbook,
and sometimes a poem of Milton or a tragedy of Shakespeare.
...
This man has not been born into the solitude where he lives. His temperment alone makes that clear. His first years were
passed in a society used to thought and argument. It is the strength of his will that has taken him to do work in the wilds
to which he seems little adapted... He has learnt to make solitude a pleasure. When one presents onself on the threshold of
his isolated dwelling, the pioneer comes forward to meet you; he shakes your hand as custom provides, but his features express
neither good will nor pleasure. He only starts talking to ask you questions, satisfying a need of the head rather than the
heart. The American is a pitiless questioner. But he is hospitable in his own way; he will provide for your needs, and he
will take care of your safety as long as you are under his roof. Only his hospitality has nothing about it that touches you,
for you feel that he himself in doing what he does is submitting to an unpleasant obligation of life in the wilds. He sees
it as a duty which his situation imposes, not as a pleasure.
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