Editing Metonymy (section)

==Related concepts==

[[Metaphor]] substitutes the name by an [[analogy]], rather than by an association.
 
[[Synecdoche]] uses a part to refer to the whole, or the whole to refer to the part.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Dubois|first1=Jacques|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UQELAQAAMAAJ&q=difference+between+metonymy+and+synecdoche|title=A General Rhetoric|last2=Mu|first2=Groupe|last3=Edeline|first3=Francis|last4=Klinkenberg|first4=Jean-Marie|date=1981|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|isbn=978-0-8018-2326-8|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Shaheen|first=Aaron|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ayvsDwAAQBAJ&q=difference+between+metonymy+and+synecdoche&pg=PA16|title=Great War Prostheses in American Literature and Culture|date=2020-06-25|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-885778-5|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-08-12|title=Metonymy - Examples and Definition of Metonymy|url=https://literarydevices.net/metonymy/|access-date=2021-03-22|website=Literary Devices|language=en-US}}</ref>

[[Metalepsis]] uses a familiar word or a phrase in a new context.<ref name="Bloom">{{cite book|last=Bloom|first=Harold|title=A Map of Misreading|year=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-516221-9}}</ref> For example, "lead foot" may describe a fast driver; lead is proverbially heavy, and a foot exerting more pressure on the [[Throttle|accelerator]] causes a vehicle to go faster (in this context unduly so).<ref>{{cite web|title=metalepsis|work=Silva Rhetoricae|url=http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/m/metalepsis.htm|access-date=2013-12-05|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130816080831/http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/M/metalepsis.htm|archive-date=2013-08-16}}</ref> The figure of speech is a "metonymy of a metonymy".<ref name="Bloom" />

Many cases of [[polysemy]] originate as metonyms: for example, "chicken" means the meat as well as the animal; "crown" for the object, as well as the institution.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Panther|first1=Klaus-Uwe|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=82R4CnbaQ0kC&q=difference+between+metonymy+and+synecdoche&pg=PA118|title=Metonymy in Language and Thought|last2=Radden|first2=Günter|date=1999-01-01|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=978-90-272-2356-2|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Conference|first1=Rhetoric Society of America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K5IhAQAAMAAJ&q=difference+between+metonymy+and+synecdoche|title=The Responsibilities of Rhetoric|last2=Smith|first2=Michelle Christine|last3=Warnick|first3=Barbara|date=2010|publisher=Waveland Press|isbn=978-1-57766-623-3|language=en}}</ref>

===Versus metaphor===
{{main|Metaphor and metonymy}}
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| image1            = Milei, motosierra (2025).jpg
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| caption2          = '''Metonymy''': The term "[[Wall Street]]" has become a metonym for the [[financial markets]] of the [[United States]] as a whole
| caption1          = '''Metaphor''': [[President of Argentina|Argentine president]] [[Javier Milei]] using a [[chainsaw]] as a metaphor for [[Austerity|cuts]] to [[Government spending|public spending]]
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Metonymy works by the [[Contiguity (psychology)|contiguity]] (association) between two concepts, whereas the term "metaphor" is based upon their analogous similarity. When people use metonymy, they do not typically wish to transfer qualities from one referent to another as they do with metaphor.<ref>{{cite web|last=Chandler|first=Daniel|title=Rhetorical Tropes|url=http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem07.html|work=Semiotics for Beginners|publisher=Aberystwyth University|access-date=19 December 2012}}</ref> There is nothing press-like about reporters or crown-like about a monarch, but "the press" and "the crown" are both common metonyms.

Some uses of figurative language may be understood as both metonymy and metaphor; for example, the relationship between "a crown" and a "king" could be interpreted metaphorically (i.e., the king, like his gold crown, could be seemingly stiff yet ultimately malleable, over-ornate, and consistently immobile). In the phrase "lands belonging to the crown", the word "crown" is a '''metonymy'''. The reason is that monarchs by and large indeed wear a crown, physically. In other words, there is a pre-existent link between "crown" and "monarchy". On the other hand, when [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] argues that the [[Modern Hebrew|Israeli language]] is a "phoenicuckoo cross with some magpie characteristics", he is using '''metaphors'''.<ref name=Revivalistics>{{cite book|author=Zuckermann, Ghil'ad|author-link=Ghil'ad Zuckermann|title=Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|year=2020|isbn=9780199812790|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/revivalistics-9780199812790?lang=en&cc=us}}</ref>{{rp|4}} There is no physical link between a language and a bird. The reason the metaphors "phoenix" and "cuckoo" are used is that on the one hand hybridic "Israeli" is based on [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], which, like a phoenix, rises from the ashes; and on the other hand, hybridic "Israeli" is based on [[Yiddish]], which like a cuckoo, lays its egg in the nest of another bird, tricking it to believe that it is its own egg. Furthermore, the metaphor "magpie" is employed because, according to Zuckermann, hybridic "Israeli" displays the characteristics of a magpie, "stealing" from languages such as [[Arabic language|Arabic]] and [[English language|English]].<ref name=Revivalistics/>{{rp|4–6}}

Two examples using the term "fishing" help clarify the distinction.<ref>Example drawn from Dirven, 1996</ref> The phrase "to fish pearls" uses metonymy, drawing from "fishing" the idea of taking things from the ocean. What is carried across from "fishing fish" to "fishing pearls" is the domain of metonymy. In contrast, the metaphorical phrase "fishing for information" transfers the concept of fishing into a new domain. If someone is "fishing" for information, we do not imagine that the person is anywhere near the ocean; rather, we transpose elements of the action of fishing (waiting, hoping to catch something that cannot be seen, probing, and most importantly, trying) into a new domain (a conversation). Thus, metaphors work by presenting a target set of meanings and using them to suggest a similarity between items, actions, or events in two domains, whereas metonymy calls up or references a specific domain (here, removing items from the sea).

Sometimes, metaphor and metonymy may both be at work in the same figure of speech, or one could interpret a phrase metaphorically or metonymically. For example, the phrase "[[Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears|lend me your ear]]" could be analyzed in a number of ways. One could imagine the following interpretations:

*Analyze "ear" metonymically first – "ear" means "attention".  The phrase "Talk to him; you have his ear" also echoes this meaning. In both this phrase and "lending an ear", we stretch the base meaning of possession and lending (to let someone borrow an object) to include non-material things (attention), but, beyond this slight extension of the verb, no metaphor is at work.  In this vein, [[Merriam Webster]] argues that "lend me your ear" is a metonym and not a synecdoche because what's being requested is the viewer's attention and the ear is only a part of the viewer's attention in a figurative way, but not literally.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/synecdoche|title=synecdoche|publisher=Merriam Webster}}</ref>
*Imagine the whole phrase literally – imagine that the speaker literally borrows the listener's ear as a physical object (and the person's head with it). Then the speaker has temporary possession of the listener's ear, so the listener has granted the speaker temporary control over what the listener hears. The phrase "lend me your ear" is interpreted to metaphorically mean that the speaker wants the listener to grant the speaker temporary control over what the listener hears.
*First, analyze the [[verb phrase]] "lend me your ear" metaphorically to mean "turn your ear in my direction", since it is known that, literally lending a body part is nonsensical. Then, analyze the motion of ears metonymically – we associate "turning ears" with "paying attention", which is what the speaker wants the listeners to do.

It is difficult to say which analysis above most closely represents the way a listener interprets the expression, and it is possible that different listeners analyse the phrase in different ways, or even in different ways at different times. Regardless, all three analyses yield the same interpretation. Thus, metaphor and metonymy, though different in their mechanism, work together seamlessly.<ref>{{cite book|last=Geeraerts|first=Dirk|editor=R. Dirven and R. Pörings|title=Metaphor and Metonymy in Comparison and Contrast|chapter-url=http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/qlvl/PDFPublications/02Theinteraction.pdf|access-date=30 November 2013|year=2002|publisher=Walter de Gruyter|isbn=978-3-11-017373-4|pages=435–465|chapter=The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in composite expressions|archive-date=6 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120706102305/http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/qlvl/PDFPublications/02Theinteraction.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>