Tolkien concludes the section by warning the translator that even the most well-worn kennings had not lost their meaning and connotations. Whereas, he argues, the Old English word hlaford, meaning 'lord' (which derives from it) was all that was left of the antique hlafweard ('loaf-guard'; the word originally meant 'bread-keeper') in daily speech, the poetic phrases used in verse retained echoes of another world:
