--- In norse_course@egroups.com, "Tim Elario" <telario@...> wrote:

> Can the phrase "vit tvau" also mean 'we two' (both women) as

opposed to 'we

> two' (man and woman)? Loki could be saying that (since we now

appear to be

> women), we two (girls) shall drive to Jötunheimar. The joke is

slightly

> different, in that they both appear to be female, but still paints

the

> strong, masculine Thor in drag (i.e.dressed as a woman) and

effeminate.

"Vit tvær" means (and means only) 'we two' (both women); "vit tvau"
can only mean 'we two' (one man and one woman). "Tvau" can refer to
one man/boy and one woman/girl OR two neuters; but two neuters are
unlikely to ever speak, let alone call themselves "vit". Loki's words
mean 'we two (one of us a woman, the other a man)'.

About the neuter gender:
neuter words for living beings does not make those beings neuters;
neuter "barn" doesn't mean the child is asexual (not a shot at Keth's
speculations :) A child will always identify itself sexually. And an
animal with a neuter name, for instance "svín" (a neuter word), still
has a perceived gender, and if speaking or spoken to as a person, it
will identify itself. In a children's story with talking animals, two
male pigs would say "vit tveir", not "vit tvau".

The idea is that words have a certain gender fixed to them, no matter
what they actually mean, but the gender of real *persons*, whether
human or carbon-based or whatever, is always identified.

Óskar