The Lost (?) Art of Kennings

[bobthesane]

Broadly, yes, I agree. But if the definition becomes too broad, there's little difference between a kenning and a colorful description. Mind you, scholars of northern European literature themselves disagree on what the strict definition of a kenning is.

"Couch potato" from caryatid's brilliant entry actually qualifies under the strict definition (at least the strict one from the Wikipedia entry I linked to earlier), I believe: strict kennings are typically 2 words, with one word utterly incongruent to the referent (the noun it's talking about); potato has nothing to do with a person, but modified by couch we suddenly know exactly what's being talked about.

"Cancer stick," however, fails the strict test. It's colorful, but merely descriptive: cigarettes are indeed sticks that cause cancer.

hehehe this whole thread is brilliant! I would like to post more, but I have to try to recover a bricked Droid phone (that things like work depend on). For those that don't know, Caryatid is my wife IRL (just for full disclosure) so I may con her into posting for me while I repair busted technology

[spoOk]

hehehe this whole thread is brilliant! I would like to post more, but I have to try to recover a bricked Droid phone (that things like work depend on). For those that don't know, Caryatid is my wife IRL (just for full disclosure) so I may con her into posting for me while I repair busted technology

here's a link to the rhyming slang I spoke of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_slang

it's not exactly the same but some of them originated in very situational,regional or 'in joke' ways.

[Hyacinth Belle]

I'm sorry--I meant to say, it's the bee's knees!

(Where the heck does that one come from anyway?)

Well, isn't this just the bee's knees! I want a Flapper Dictionary.

[Altair]

Well, isn't this just the bee's knees! I want a Flapper Dictionary.

At least now we know the era during which it originated. Thanks!

[Altair]

here's a link to the rhyming slang I spoke of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_slang

it's not exactly the same but some of them originated in very situational,regional or 'in joke' ways.

Tres cool!

You could render a text absolutely impenetrable by using rhyming slang in conjunction with kennings to describe things. For example:

god dog

god dog (and bone = phone) = god phone = prayer

...which also has the advantage of being a palindrome.

[drekfletch]

modern kenning that requires knowledge of story, a kenning we still very much use today: Montezuma's revenge

America's culture is generally more heavily influenced by Classical and Christian mythologies. You find things like, 'the Midas touch' or 'my own cross to bear.'

Though, I can see what you're saying about classification. I conceive of kennings as either slightly different than euphemisms and metaphors etc, or as a specific sub-type. Both of which are hard to describe the difference, not all rectangles are squares type of thing. Though I wonder how much of that distinction is the cultural definition of kennings, or My Interpretation of kennings. I presume the etymology of kennings makes understandings a good translation (from ken=area of knowledge/experience, things known). So any word substitution that was understood could work. Epithets could also come under this category.