Talk:Metonymy

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Contents 1 Entree 2 Question 3 Suggestion for lead 4 P.C.Plod 5 Not the best example 6 Example needs punctuation? 7 Confusion about Keels example 8 Metonymy and Synecdoche 9 Examples 10 metonymy vs metaphor 11 The opening sentence 12 When one stands for the rest 13 domain

[edit] Entree

I think this is a poor example. For a start, in this article it refers to 'main course' (as 'dish'). However, this is Americanised and, indeed, contrary to what the link says if you follow it. Either remove the example or tag it as 'American usage'.

Okay -- changed it to "course (in dining)". Tom

[edit] Question

What is "Oslo" for "Oslo Peace Accords" or "Texas" for "University of Texas [athletics]" considered? Simply abbreviation? Thanks ~ Dpr 08:28, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is a Metonymy. You are using "Oslo" to mean the peace accords, not because Oslo is a particularly peaceful place but because the Accords are associated with the city.

I've also heard people use "metonymy" to refer to the use of one word to refer to another with which it commonly occurs, regardless of the relationship of the referents. For example, when I was in high school people would say "that's statutory" to refer to questionable older/younger relationship, referring to statutory rape (even though the word "statutory" itself has nothing to do with rape or age or relationships). I'm not sure however it this second use is widely accepted.

Of course, it's also an abbreviation!Tom 10:39, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I wouldn't call this abbreviation or metonymy. I'd call it elision. Abbreviation means to shorten a word or phrase; i.e. Miss from Mistress. Elision is the omission of a sound or syllable in speech. The word 'rape' is not spoken but understood. How is describing a relationship as being 'statutory' metonymic? You said you 'heard' that using one word to refer to another (word) with which it commonly occurs is metonymic, regardless of the relationship of the referents. Where di you 'hear' that? It doesn't make sense. The common co-occurence of words is known as collocation and has nothing to do with metonymy. Brian

Right, Brian, which is why the definition as it now stands is just wrong. The key isn't the association of the words, it's the association of the meanings of the words. The perfect example of metonymy that I was given in high school was "The paths of glory lead but unto the grave." Grave is metonymy for death. But there's no particularly strong association between the words "grave" and "death". Rather between the ideas/concepts/meanings of grave and death.

[edit] Suggestion for lead

Very good article, indeed. In reading it I had one suggestion. I'd like to see a very simple example of the term as it's used rhetorically. My suggestion would be to use, "The press" or "The Media" to indicate news reporting, as in, "The media was there to cover the fire," or, "The press reported extensively the merger of Aol and Time Warner." Of course, many such easy to understand examples are possible. Tallyho, Calicocat 02:27, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] P.C.Plod

The name P.C.Plod for a British policeman started as the name of a character in the Noddy stories, but it became slang for any ordinary real British policeman. Can this be classed as metonymy? Anthony Appleyard 06:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not the best example

I saw this example in the article...

On the other hand, asking for "All hands on deck" is a synecdoche because hands (A) are actually a part of the men (B) to whom they refer.

Dictionary.com defines "hand" as, among other things, "[o]ne who is part of a group or crew" [1]. Since the example above is not referring to the crew's hands, but rather to the crewmen themselves, is that really an example of synechdoche (or, for that matter, metonymy) at all? I suppose calling it synechdoche would be valid if that is how that usage of "hand" came about, but in that case the etymology should be noted. Thoughts? --bdesham ★ 20:36, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

The fact that "hand" refers to the crewmen and not the crewmen's actual hands is what makes it an example of synecdoche. This is in fact the canonical example of synecdoche; referring to the worker as "the hand" is to refer to the whole as the part. It's such a common usage that it even found its way into the dictionary, as you note. Fumblebruschi 21:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

---

The example, "to fish pearls" seems like a metaphor to me: am I mistaken that, "finishing for pearls" would have the exact same meaning? (And be employing the same linguistic devices.) Would the argument slightly farther down that it, "transfers the concept of fishing ... into a new domain" (namely hunting pearls instead of hunting fish). The charictarization of the activity of fishing as it is metaphorically being applied seems ill-written but perhaps not stricly incorrect. Paxfeline 03:39, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

"to fish pearls" (or "fishing for pearls", which you correctly note means exactly the same thing) is not a metaphor, since you are literally fishing. The metonymy in this case does not involve the word "fish" (or "fishing"), but the use of the word "pearls" as a metonym for the shellfish that contain pearls. Fumblebruschi 21:10, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

No -- the metonymy *does* involve fish. The point is that you are not getting fish, you are getting pearls -- but fishing and getting-pearls are both associated with going into the ocean and getting stuff out of it. Thus, you are maintaining the domain of usage (reinforcing an association) rather than transferring a concept to a new domain (as with "fishing for information"). There's an article linked to which explains this in depth. Tom

[edit] Example needs punctuation?

"When the distinction is made, it is the following: if A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a part of B and a metonymy if A is commonly associated with B but not a part of it."

If divided into sections it looks like this:

"When the distinction is made, it is the following:
if A is used to refer to B,
it is a synecdoche if A is a part of B
and a metonymy if A is commonly associated with B but not a part of it."

I don't understand it. Is something missing, and if so what?

Webhat 08:35, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... the problem is the chain of ifs. The logic is clearer if we indent:

When the distinction is made, it is the following:

if A is used to refer to B,

it is a synecdoche if A is a part of B

and a metonymy if A is commonly associated with B but not a part of it."

There's no technical problem with the punctuation above that I can see, but I do see how it could be confusing. I'm going to change the first "if" to a "when" -- that may well help. Here's my proposed revision (I'll go ahead and put this in for now): When the distinction made, it is the following: when A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a part of B and a metonymy if A is commonly associated with B but not a part of it. Tom

[edit] Confusion about Keels example

There is a famous example which displays synecdoche, metaphor and metonymy in one sentence. "Fifty keels ploughed the deep", where "keels" is the metonym as it takes a part (of the ship) as the whole (of the ship), but keels are not an inherent quality of 'shipness'; "ploughed" is the metaphor as it substitutes (thus also displacing it) by association the concept of sailing; and "the deep" is the synecdoche, as "deepness" is an inherent quality or attribute of seas and oceans and directly affects their defintition.

Regarding this, is it true that either one of these is a metonym, as it seems that both of the examples keels and the deep are parts of their respective references, and not separable objects/qualities. Maybe a new clearer example is needed, or to simply rid this example from the article so confusion does not arise. (unsigned by 142.151.166.83 at 21:37, 11 December 2005)

"Deep" is not a "part" of the ocean -- "deep" is an adjective describing the ocean. If "the deep" were a part of the ocean, it would surely be the bottom of it, not the part "plowed by keels". Tom

I take issue with the same section of the article, but for a different reason altogether: How "famous" is a phrase if the only reference [2] to it is that which proclaims its fame? It's not just a matter of spelling [3], either. --electric counterpoint 08:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Why don't we just remove the word famous? I assume whoever added it had heard it various times and it's a kind of neat example, so I'm not opposed to keeping it. It's not like this is somebody trying to add their name to a list of poets or something -- it's just an example of metonymy, after all. It also strikes me as plausable that this example has been used quite a bit (perhaps it appeared in a rhetoric textbook at some point) but does not show up on a google search. Tom

[edit] Metonymy and Synecdoche

With the comment, "Removed "Metonymy & Synecdoche" section, incorporating it into larger article and not as a separate section to correct either error or cog-ling bias and bring it in line with synecdoche article", the metonymy and synecdoche section was removed. What is strange to me is that this was not really "incorporated" into the article -- rather, a statement was added to the beginning stating that "metonymy is often confused with synecdoche". Since the old section suggested that "synecdoche is usually understood as a type of metonymy", it seemed like an awfully big change. Anyway, I am tempted to revert but wanted to allow for discussion first. Do other people think the old metonymy & synecdoche section was biased? Does moving a statement saying the two terms are often "confused" into the lead paragraph just create a different bias? Tom

For reference, here is the removed section:

Synecdoche and Metonymy

Synecdoche, where a specific part of something is taken to refer to the whole, is usually understood as a specific kind of metonymy. Sometimes, however, people make an absolute distinction between a metonymy and a synecdoche, treating metonymy as different from rather than inclusive of synecdoche. There is a similar problem with the usage of simile and metaphor.

When the distinction is made, it is the following: when A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a part of B and a metonym if A is commonly associated with B but not a part of it.

Thus, "The White House said" would be a metonymy for the president and his staff, because the White House (A) is not part of the president or his staff (B), it is merely closely associated with them because of physical proximity. On the other hand, asking for "All hands on deck" is a synecdoche because hands (A) are actually a part of the men (B) to whom they refer.

There is an example which displays synecdoche, metaphor and metonymy in one sentence. "Fifty keels ploughed the deep", where "keels" is the synecdoche as it takes a part (of the ship) as the whole (of the ship); "ploughed" is the metaphor as it substitutes the concept of ploughing a field for moving through the ocean; and "the deep" is the metonym, as "deepness" is an attribute associated with the ocean.

Well -- there has been no reply here. I'm replacing the section -- this adds to the discussion, I think, and helps make this an encyclopedic article and not a mere dictionary entry. Tom

Synecdoche is a subset of metonymy.

• Metonymy: in place of A, we use B, which with it is associated.
• Synecdoche: in place of A, we use B, which is either a part of A or something A is a part of. Since parts of an object are also associated with the whole object, all synecdoches are metonyms, though not all metonyms are synecdoches. --Loodog 19:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

The list of examples keeps getting longer -- this really isn't useful! Two or three examples will suffice. I'll go ahead and do some dramatic trimming Tom

I just trimmed the example list again -- maybe we need to reformat these as sentences and not as a list, since apparently formatting as a list makes people think they need to add more examples (and, in the most recent case, to categorize those examples into British and American examples!) Tom

[edit] metonymy vs metaphor

I was taught, and I think it makes perfect sense, that metonymy and metaphor are not mutually exclusive; metonymy is a type of metaphor. Clearly not every type of metaphor is reached by metonymy, but in any instance of metonymy, you are using one word as a substitute for another, which is the very definition of metaphor. Just take the definition from the lead: "...is the substitution of one word for another [with which it is associated]." Take out the bracketed part, and you have the definition of metaphor. The requirement this article assumes, that metaphors *must* be made by virtue of A being said to have B-like characteristics, is consistent neither with what I have learned metaphor to be, nor with what dictionary.com says it is, nor even with what the wikipedia entry on metaphor says it must be (from the brief skimming I've given it).

In other words, I think this article artificially constrains the definition of metaphor in order to support an exclusive relationship between it and metonymy for which there is no basis or convention. And since the article mentions different contexts in which this can be framed, I'll add that I have heard the above argument both in literary and in linguistic contexts.

I know I'm supposed to "be bold" and all that, but I don't like being bold. This is my warning shot... if nobody complains and says I'm wrong, I'm going to fix this in a couple days. I forget how exactly I'm supposed to sign this, but in case anyone wants to yell at me or whatever, my SN is Eleusinian 06:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Just noticed the change -- I've reverted it. Just because metaphor and metonymy each can be described as substitutions (Word/Concept A used for Word/Concept B) does not mean they're the same. The deleted section included an explanation of the difference, an example, and a citation. I added a new sentence acknowledging the similarity you described between metonymy and metaphor, but I've returned the rest of the section to its former state. Tom

Take a look at any definition of metaphor, including the one on Wikipedia itself. It doesn't specify the way in which the comparison is made, just that it's made. If you really insist, I'll go and read that reference of yours more closely, but really, apply some basic logic and you'll see that metonymy is a kind of metaphor. A car and a Honda Civic aren't the same either, but one's a kind of the other.

I don't know how to add references with nice formatting and all, but if you look at http://www2.dsu.nodak.edu/users/jtallmon/style.htm , you'll see a professor at Dickinson U. whose website includes a definition of metonymy that explicitly says it's a kind of metaphor. Mind you, I am in no way connected to Dickinson; I just did a google search and posted the first thing I saw that wasn't from "just some page."

If you want to consider the two terms mutually exclusive, fine. But it is by no means obvious or established that they are, and you should permit, at the very least, the mention that some consider them not to be. I've edited in a way that I think is a very fair compromise.

Eleusinian

The definition given in the wikipedia metaphor lead is that metaphor "is a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects. Metaphor then always draws out a similarity between two dissimilar things. Metonymy is quite different -- it uses an *association* between two things to relate them. If you look at the definitions on the very thorough Sylva Rhetorica site (http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm) you'll see definitions that reiterate the difference -- it defines metaphor as a comparison and metonymy as referring to something by naming one of its attributes (I find this definition slightly confusing, but you get the idea). I'll grant that the webpage you site gives the definition you suggest, but certainly in cognitive science, where this distinction is talked about a great deal, metonymy is *not* considered a type of metaphor.

A quick search of scholar.google.com for metaphor and metonymy will get you plenty of articles and books on the difference between these figures (or modes of thought/language). I'll look for some of the more foundational papers on the topic and include them as citations as I re-edit this section. Tom

Sorry, I forgot to check back until now! My wiki-use tends to go in and out. Anyway I like the current revision. I see your point about the linguistic and cognative science analysis, but my point was simply that at a superficial level, the two are not mutually exclusive. You have covered both of those aspects, and in good detail. I've only skimmed it (I'm really tired right now, can barely even read a full sentence ;) ) but it looks good. Thanks for the work!

One thing, though. Couldn't "lend me your ear" also be synecdoche if you're chopping someone's head off?  ;)Eleusinian

Glad you approve of the latest version! Your new interpretation of "lend me your ear" is quite extreme indeed! Tom

I've noticed this unfortunate tendency that anytime a colloquial word in english is borrowed by pedagogy to describe an exact studied concept, the people studying the concept define it as only being the latter. E.g. energy is a word borrowed by physics, but the word means far more than the precisely defined concept in physics. That being the case, I feel it's only fair in making this elaborate comparison between metaphor and metonymy to mention in the article that in the familiar colloquial sense as is defined in a dictionary they are NOT mutually exclusive. In fact, all metonyms are metaphors in this sense. I'm sure people have studied these things in depth and constrained "metaphor" to a smaller region than colloquial english has, but this restriction, as Eleusinian has mentioned, is artificial and is not complete.--Loodog 19:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The opening sentence

I think the parenthesis about the etymology of the word makes the first sentence practically unreadable. Can't we just open with "In rhetoric, metonymy is the substitution of one word for another with which it is associated." and then put the etymology on the second line. Somehow the combination of greek letters, italics and nested brackets makes me dizzy. 85.178.40.91 17:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When one stands for the rest

In restaurants, I often hear people order a Coke, even if the restaurant serves Pepsi. It's been my observation that people say "Coke" to refer to any kind of cola, even using the brandname in preference to the beverage name. For example, the drink is called a "rum and coke," not a "rum and cola." Is this a metonym? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Khan singh (talk • contribs) 07:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC).

Yeah -- I think that's a metonym. So is "pop" by the way -- in that case we take the noise the soda makes and use it for the soda -- pretty cool. Tom

[edit] domain

The word "domain" appear six times in the article, each without clarifying statements or a wikilink. Looking it up in wikipedia doesn't help. In the interest of making this more accessible, "domain" needs to clarified.--Loodog 20:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)