Having read through the talk and related articles Im bold but trepidatious   I think I have a perspective that may help bring some order to this article I wandered in because I saw a note that said it needs some cleanup From the Talk I can understand why few would want to touch it  Im going to make some notes here because I need to put some ideas down to put my own mind in order Given the debates I choose to place these notes here so that those who might edit my edits will have some idea of my reasoning  I have read and studied the subject of Northern European History for many years both academically and personally I do not hold a degree in it except if you count a minor in History  I note with interest that in the debate there are many who weigh in who are from Scandinavian countries and see that there is a different perspective on the subject which I hadnt considered  Those cultural perspectives are of interest  My cultural perspective is that of a US citizen from the middle North of the United States I am presently writing in Minnesota which means I live amongst many ethnic Swedes Norwegians a few Danes and some Finns Viking in the English usages where I live and the following statements have only my experience as witness has the following definitions   The Vikings  noun plural  A professional football team which gets to the Super Bowl periodically but never wins and wants to increase my taxes so they can have a new place to play and B the cultural group from which came the real first discoverer of America that was the Dark Ages so there werent really real countries back then so although they were from places like Sweden Norway and Danemark because things were kind of mixed up and folks were moving around some they kind of got all over and since they arent from any place in particular but had some things in common we lump them together into Vikings which means ethinic Scandinavians from before about  before the current maps were drawn and countries established   The Viking  singular   which would be Lief Erickson who discovered America but doesnt get a holiday like Christopher Columbus for reasons no one quite understands except that Liefia and Erika just dont seem as catchy as names for a land mass as America so Lief gets the credit Columbus gets the holiday and Amerigo Vespucci gets to name it and no one remembers who he was  Welcome to the midwest of the US where we did grow up laying Vikings and Indians as much as Cowboys and Indians  Now more seriously  Viking is a term in Modern English that has a meaning distinct from the various Norse words of similar spelling That term is related to B above