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#40280 - 08/31/01 03:36 AM Synecdoche?
Vernon Compton enthusiast Registered: 06/29/01 Posts: 273 Loc: NZ	Is the expression "The White House" as commonly heard in the media an example of synecdoche?
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#40281 - 08/31/01 06:13 AM Re: Synecdoche?
maverick Carpal Tunnel Registered: 09/15/00 Posts: 4757	Yes. It is being used representatively for "the President" or more generally for "the agents of government" or some such phrase, presumably.
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#40282 - 08/31/01 06:39 AM Re: Synecdoche?
belligerentyouth old hand Registered: 12/20/00 Posts: 1055 Loc: Berlin	Is it just me or does anyone else here find this term, in a landscape of precise rhetorical meta-language, to be very general?
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#40283 - 08/31/01 06:49 AM Re: Synecdoche?
maverick Carpal Tunnel Registered: 09/15/00 Posts: 4757	Yes. Which helps me, since I can actually *remember this one! and therefore get to use it rather than confuse it with 73 other Greek terms that I used to know once upon a time
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#40284 - 08/31/01 07:08 AM Re: Synecdoche?
belligerentyouth old hand Registered: 12/20/00 Posts: 1055 Loc: Berlin	> Yes. Which helps me, since I can actually *remember this one! Yes, you've got a point there. Vernon, in case you didn't know, THE resourse for Greek meta-terminology is 'The Forest of Rhetoric' located at the following addy: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm There you'll find a far more indepth look at 'synecdoche' and related terms than any dictionary will provide... good question, by the way :-)
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#40285 - 08/31/01 07:26 AM Re: Synecdoche?
Vernon Compton enthusiast Registered: 06/29/01 Posts: 273 Loc: NZ	In reply to: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm Thank you for the link, belligerentyouth. I think I found an error in the section on synecdoche. The rustler bragged he'd absconded with five hundred head of longhorns. Both "head" and "longhorns" are parts of cattle that represent them as wholes Am I mistaken in thinking that, since "longhorn" is a specific breed of cattle, the rustler may not have been using two instances of synecdoche? I read the statement as defining the type of cattle he stole, "longhorns", as opposed to Charolais, Angus, Hereford or Guernsey.
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#40286 - 08/31/01 08:09 AM Re: Synecdoche?
maverick Carpal Tunnel Registered: 09/15/00 Posts: 4757	yeahbut. long·horn (lông'hôrn', lŏng'-) n. 1. Any of a breed of cattle with long horns, formerly bred in great numbers in the southwest United States. 2. A variety of Cheddar cheese molded into a long cylinder. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. So I don't reckon it does describe a breed as such, just a general description of type. After all, we used to have dairy shorthorn, beef shorthorn... But I love the way that the second definition gives a further example of the migration of meaning via synecdoche (cow to cheese).
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#40287 - 08/31/01 08:53 AM Re: Synecdoche?
wwh Carpal Tunnel Registered: 01/18/01 Posts: 13858	The synecdoche of a cynic duck.
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#40288 - 08/31/01 10:40 AM Re: better a cynic duck...
maverick Carpal Tunnel Registered: 09/15/00 Posts: 4757	than a toilet duck
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#40289 - 08/31/01 10:46 AM Re: a cynic duck?
Faldage Carpal Tunnel Registered: 12/01/00 Posts: 13667	A duck that works out at the White Dog Gym?
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