If language is a map of reality, it's a map drawn on a chalkboard in a rainstorm.

[ineffabelle]

The Viking Thread is actually an interesting test of someone's internal linguistic machinery.
If your initial reaction is "OBVIOUSLY it means he's dreaming he's a Viking, and anyone who doesn't get that is stupid or insane", I would suspect that the last letter in your MBTI is probably a J.  You generally build your language linearly and formally, and if/when you don't, you're breaking that consciously in order to create an ambiguity on purpose.
But some people create their language out of context and connotation more than a formal understanding of "what language is"  (and they're not all stupid or insane).

Personally, I agree with the "He's dreaming of being a Viking" interpretation, in the sense that I think that's probably what the writers meant, but the other interpretation is intuitively clear to me as well.  Even though it's probably the first time anyone ever used it that way.  New metaphors arise all the time.

Now, comedians/comic writers often have a skill for creating ambiguities and absurdities that they might not even consciously understand, but that somehow "strike them as funny", which is what I suspect happened in this case.

Comments

Re: aargh! what have you done?

[agaitis-byrjun.livejournal.com]

So....see you again in a month then?