Metonymy Did You Mean Metonymy?

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In rhetoric and cognitive linguistics, metonymy (in Greek μετά (meta) = after/later and όνομα (onoma) = name) is the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex entity. It is also known as denominatio or pars pro toto (part for the whole).

In rhetoric, metonymy is the substitution of one word for another with which it is associated. Metonymy works by contiguity rather than similarity. Typically, when someone uses metonymy, they don't wish to transfer qualities (as you do with metaphor); rather they transfer associations which may not be integral to the meaning.

The common figure "The White House saidw/." is a good example of metonymy, with the term "White House" actually referring to the authorities who are symbolized by the White House, which is an inanimate object that says nothing. The Crown for a kingdom is another example of this kind of metonymy. Metonymy can also refer to the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it: describing someone's house in order to describe them, for example. Advertising frequently uses this kind of metonymy, simply putting a product in close proximity to something we want (beauty, happiness).

Synecdoche, where a specific part of something is taken to refer to the whole, is thus a specific kind of metonymy.

In cognitive linguistics, metonymy is one of the basic characteristics of cognition. It is extremely common for people to take one well-understood or easy-to-perceive aspect of something and use that aspect to stand either for the thing as a whole or for some other aspect or part of it. For example,

The pen is mightier than the sword.

"Pen" denotes words, and hence argument, and "sword" denotes military force.

In linguistics, as in rhetoric, the distinction between metaphor and metonymy is important. For example, the phrase "to fish pearls" uses metonymy, drawing from "fishing" the notion of taking things from the ocean. What remains similar is the domain of usage and the associations, but we understand the phrase in spite of rather than because of the literal meaning of fishing: we know you do not use a fishing rod or net to get pearls. In contrast, the metaphorical phrase "fishing for information", transfers the concept of fishing (waiting, hoping to catch something) into a new domain. (example drawn from Dirven, 1996)

More specifically, the distinction between synecdoche and metonymy is that metonyms take a necessary attribute, adjunct or quality which directly affects the concept/referent in question for that concept/referent, whereas a synecdoche simply takes a part of an object as its whole. Thus, properly speaking, in the sentence, "I have been seeing John for six months", "seeing" is a metonym for "being in a romantic relationship", as here "seeing" is an affective attribute or quality of being in a relationship. It can be argued then, that technically speaking, terms such as "Crown Land", are synecdoches and not metonyms, as the crown is not as such an inherent quality or attribute of being a monarch, and whether or not a monarch has a crown on his or her head does not affect the fact that he or she is a monarch.

There is a famous 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), 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 metonym, as "deepness" is an inherent quality or attribute of seas and oceans and directly affects their defintition.

References

Corbett, Edward P.J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, New York, 1971.
Dirven, René "Conversion as a Conceptual Metonymy of Basic Event Schemata."

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