Re: Metrical Stress, Feet, Syllables, Genders, Email Servers etc.

--- Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:

> But there's nothing sentient or humanoid
> about the computer
> I use.  :-)
Maybe that's we KNOW about computers (and programs;
the notions of computers and programs being very
intricated among common users), but not how we FEEL
it.

> Is "computer" masculine in French?  In Spanish,
> IIRC, it's feminine, la
> computadora.
Is it ? I thought it was 'computador'. Wow, if
computers (l'ordinateur, masculine) were female in
French, that would certainly completely change our
relation to them. (True, we sometimes say 'la
machine', but that more often refers to hardware).

It is quite usual to hear phrases like 'Il me dit des
trucs bizarres', 'Il veut pas faire ce que je lui
dis', 'Il est plante', 'Il m'insulte' (*), etc, about
the computer, or rather, the whole (hardware +
software). That means that the computer is perceived
as something nearly human, even if everybody agrees of
course that it is not. You can have a dialog with the
computer, you give 'him' orders, 'he' is supposed to
obey, or at least to explain you why 'he' cannot, or
doesn't want to. That's why I think that a 4th gender
would be justified for it. Could be something like
"het" for instance (a mix of 'he' + 'it'); 'het' also
being an article in Dutch.

(*) He tells me odd things, He doesn't want to do what
I tell him, He got stuck, He's insulting me...



=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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