Struwwelpeter: what gender is the word ‘computer’?

STRUWWELPETER has recently spent a week in hospital (again).

Lying there, flat on his back and tied to his bed by tubes and drips, he became rather bored. And so, to amuse himself, he thought about the things he liked least about hospitals.

• Nursing aides who chew gum – often with their mouths open.

• Being awakened from a deep sleep by bright lights at 5am.

• Trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in bed, with only one hand available to hold the paper.

• The only source of entertainment is the silly little TV in the ceiling. Your choice is limited to eTV, SABC1, 2 and 3 – and soccer. If you don’t like political speeches, canned laughter or pop/boeremusiek, you do what I did. You switch the damn thing off. And you wonder again how many days before you go home.

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This article is inspired by Stats SA 2014 (who still base their reports on race)

Age Group 0-4, Black – 4,936,601, Coloured – 420,171, Asian – 99,256, White – 263,301;

Age 5-9, Black – 4,541,523, Coloured – 428,867, Asian – 96,953, White – 269,367;

Age 0-14, Black – 4,303,892, Coloured – 444,983, Asian – 93,863, White – 280,988;

Age 15-19, Black – 4,357,984, Coloured – 451,117, Asian – 101,609, White – 306,851;

Age 20-24, Black – 4,417,106, Coloured – 427,547, Asian – 109,668, White – 312,797.

Totals: Blacks – 22,557,106, Coloureds – 2,172,685, Asian – 501,349, White – 1,433,304.

Ratios: Blacks – 84,6%, Coloureds – 8,2%, Asian – 1,8%, White – 5,4%.

We can thus estimate that by 2030 – based on current growth – for the age group 0-24 there will be 91 Blacks, 7 Coloureds, 1 Asian and 1 White in every group of 100 youngsters.

Those who thus keep harping on about driving the whites into the sea should not bother any more as we’re disappearing fast anyway. By 2030 whites are liable to account for less than 2% of the total population.

The bad news of course is that starvation, unemployment and misery are likely to still be present, but they’ll apply generally only to blacks – their being over 90% of the population by that stage – and generally to young blacks.

You begin to see the enormity of the challenge facing the country and the government in attempting to feed, house, educate and otherwise sustain such numbers.

For this reason alone the government should be actively creating an environment wherein jobs can be easily created, they should be attempting to slow the black birth rate and they should be concentrating on creating capitalistic solutions for hungry mouths, rather than attempting to instil socialistic ideas in an exploding population of young hopefuls.

If they are not doing so, and to all intents and purposes, it seems they are not, then SA is heading for a huge problem.

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But talking about statistics; World Airlines – makes you think, doesn’t it?

1) QANTAS (Australian) 32 500 employees with a total of 252 aircraft = 129 employees per aircraft

2) American Airlines 87 897 employees with a total of 618 aircraft = 142 employees per aircraft

3) Delta Airlines 106 216 employees with a total of 722 aircraft = 147 employees per aircraft

4) British Airways 36 832 employees with a total of 238 aircraft = 154 employees per aircraft

5) United Airlines 115 149 employees with a total of 710 aircraft = 162 employees per aircraft

6) South African Airways 55 500 employees with a total of 58 aircraft = 957 employees per aircraft

Now work out for yourself why SAA is forever broke. (Thanks Balt)

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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.

The men’s group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine 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 pay cheque on accessories for it.

(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (‘el 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 realise that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.