Talk:Kenning

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I admit I constructed the "battle" kenning right from my head. I remember seeing a rather long ancient example involving sea-gull, wind, sail, ship, sea and something else. Does anyone remember? Mikkalai 08:22, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I added an example from the skald Öyvind Finnsson which shows how kennings are based on knowing Norse mythology and why Snorri Sturluson composed the younger Edda.--Wiglaf 17:30, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Um...isn't the Game Of Kings usually a reference to horse racing, not tennis? I'm changing it to that, but if someone more knowledgeable changes it back, I won't contest it.

[edit] Modern kennings

Some of these are a little... obscure. Or at least in my experience. And can it really be said that any modern poetic way of saying something is a kenning? I'm not familiar enough with this term to know for sure. RobertM525 18:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, in my opinion this is silly and should go. Kenning is not a very meaningful term outside of Germanic poetry. Haukur 19:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Modern German languages still use them. de:Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod is a great book lamenting among other things, Kennings, Anglicisms in German, etc. The chapter on Kennings (called "Die Sucht nach Synonymen" The Yearning/Search/Addition for Synonyms), where he discusses the (German) media's obsession with replacing proper nouns with kennings. (In an Anglo-American context, that would be beginning sentences with "The former Governor", "The Connecticutian", etc., to describe George W. Bush, rather than saying "Bush" "the President", or "he" over and over again may become painful.) One chapter I remember "renamed" Frankfurt "the German Wallstreet", "Main-hattan", "the financial capital", etc. I'm thinking such a mention would merit a sentence in the English article. I'll be putting a similar comment on the German talkpage. See what they say, too. samwaltz 13:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Ergh. Working on a translation from German to English in the background, and I keep coming across more and more kennings. The author uses capital cities to refer to governments ("Washington's decision", instead of "the decision of the US government", when neither the city's 500,000 residents, nor their mayor had any say in the matter}. "The transatlantic security community" rather than "NATO". And on. And on. And on. samwaltz 13:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)