---
title: "metonymy"
description: "Hello, everybody :) it's very strange but i can't still use this site) but it's interesting to read ..."
author: "Kuralight"
published: "2012-10-08T09:53:13+00:00"
modified: "2012-10-08T09:53:40+00:00"
locale: "ru"
canonical_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/metonymy-293977"
markdown_url: "https://yvision.kz/post/metonymy-293977/markdown"
site_name: "Yvision.kz"
---

# metonymy

> Hello, everybody :) it's very strange but i can't still use this site) but it's interesting to read ...

Hello, everybody :) it's very strange but i can't still use this site) but it's interesting to read any webloges of different people =) and pardon for so late entry to this atmosphere... and now, please, read about metonymy, one of the kind of trope.

****Metonymy is taken from Greek, what means "change of name".

Metonymy is a figurative meaning of word, which founding on the substitution of direct object name to another on the basis of contiguity.

Not infrequently, metonymy is confused with a metaphor. But:

- "Metaphor *creates* the relation between its objects, while metonymy *presupposes* that relation."

(Hugh Bredin, "Metonymy." *Poetics Today*, 1984)

- "Metonymy and metaphor also have fundamentally different functions. Metonymy is about *referring**:* a method of naming or identifying something by mentioning something else which is a component part or symbolically linked. In contrast, metaphor is about understanding and interpretation: it is a means to understand or explain one phenomenon by describing it in terms of another."

(Murray Knowles and Rosamund Moon, *Introducing Metaphor*. Routledge, 2006)

- "If metaphor works by transposing qualities from one plane of reality to another, metonymy works by associating meanings within the same plane. . . The representation of reality inevitably involves a metonym: we choose a part of 'reality' to stand for the whole. The urban settings of television crime serials are metonyms--a photographed street is not meant to stand for the street itself, but as a metonym of a particular type of city life--inner-city squalor, suburban respectability, or city-centre sophistication."

(John Fiske, *Introduction to Communication Studies*, 2nd ed. Routledge, 1992)

In order to understand the meaning of the metonymy, it is quite reasonable to show examples and observations:

- "Many standard items of vocabulary are metonymic. A *red-letter day* is important, like the feast days marked in red on church calendars. . . . On the level of slang, a *redneck* is a stereotypical member of the white rural working class in the Southern U.S., originally a reference to necks sunburned from working in the fields." (Connie Eble, "Metonymy." *The Oxford Companion to the English Language*, 1992)

- "Fear gives wings." (Romanian proverb)

- "Detroit is still hard at work on an SUV that runs on rain forest trees and panda blood." (Conan O'Brien)

- The White House asked the television networks for air time on Monday night.

- "Whitehall prepares for a hung parliament." (*The Guardian*, January 1, 2009)

- "I stopped at a bar and had a couple of double Scotches. They didn't do me any good. All they did was make me think of Silver Wig, and I never saw her again." (Raymond Chandler, *The Big Sleep*)

- "One of the favorite American metonymic processes is the one in which a part of a longer expression is used to stand for the whole expression. Here are some examples for the 'part of an expression for the whole expression' metonymy in American English:

Danish *for* Danish pastry shocks *for* shock absorbers wallets *for* wallet-sized photos Ridgemont High *for* Ridgemont High School the States *for* the United States

(Zoltán Kövecses, *American English: An Introduction*. Broadview, 2000)

- The suits on Wall Street walked off with most of our savings.

- "The B.L.T. left without paying." (waitress referring to a customer)

- "The following trivial metonymic [utterance] may serve as an illustration of an idealized cognitive model:

Let's go to bed now.

Going to bed is typically understood metonymically in the sense of 'going to sleep.' This metonymic target forms part of an idealized script in our culture: when I want to sleep, I first go to bed before I lie down and fall asleep. Our knowledge of this sequence of acts is exploited in metonymy: in referring to the initial act we evoke the whole sequence of acts, in particular the central act of sleeping."

(Günter Radden, "The Ubiquity of Metonymy." *Cognitive and Discourse Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy*, ed. by José Luis Otal Campo, Ignasi Navarro i Ferrando, and Begoña Bellés Fortuño. Universitat Jaume, 2005)

 

Great thanks,

Kuralay

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Source: [https://yvision.kz/post/metonymy-293977](https://yvision.kz/post/metonymy-293977)