Journalling about people: try a kenning

What's a kenning then?

Here's Wikipedia's definition which is rather heavy on the ancient Scandinavian roots.

Kennings come from Old English and Norse poetry, and they describe something without using its actual name, e.g. 'mouse catcher ' was a cat, a sword was a 'skull-splitter' and a river a 'swan road'.

So a kenning "names something without using its name". They can be like riddle poems - what am I describing?

Kids learn them in school these days: here are lots of kennings from youngsters, on the children's writing website Kids on the Net.


You probably remember a Coke advert which did something similar. The advantage is you can do it to name anything, and it can be different each time. When you don't want to just put the same old word or name on a LO - why not embellish with a kenning instead?