Talk:medusetl

mead seat or mead hall

The one entry I can find in Google Books is a book BeoWulf, edited by Walter John Sedgefield, and appears to be some dictionary or concordance. In this it is indicated to mean "mead hall".--Richardb 02:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it means mead-bench, but it is often used by metonymy for the mead-hall. Widsith 07:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Does that mean Walter John Sedgefield's book is not authoritative ? What is your source that is more authoritative ?--Richardb 02:12, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

In Old English poetry, metonymy and synecdoche are very common as rhetorical devices. They talk about destroying a throne and it means they will bring down a king. Medusetl is along those lines; it means literally a mead-bench, but very often when it is used the entire mead-hall is meant. You ask what my sources are, but the word is not an obscure one and it's very clear what it indicates. Medu means ‘mead’ and ‘setl’ is the English word ‘settle’ = seat, bench. However, checking in Sweet's Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon I see he gives the meaning as ‘mead-seat’; Bosworth & Toller, which can be checked online somewhere, defines it similarly as ‘A mead-seat, a seat in a banqueting hall’. Mitchell & Robinson give it as ‘mead-hall seat’. The word (and the related medubenc) comes up a lot - the citation from Beowulf is just the most famous. The source you have seen is probably glossing the word in a context where it indicates the hall in general; but that is something which a reader of Old English will understand from context, since very many terms are used in this way. Mead-benches and halls in general were very important in Germanic society and that's why their destruction or otherwise was always thought worth commenting on. Widsith 08:46, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Does not meet CFI

This entry does not meet the currently overly tough Critieria for Inclusion WT:CFI. This is clearly an argument for correcting the Critieria for Inclusion to match real practice, or risk losing words such as this.--Richardb 02:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

It does meet CFI. There are many examples of this word in OE literature, I have added one from Beowulf. If you are just looking on Google, you are unlikely to find any cites! Widsith 07:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)