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#40280 08/31/01 07:36 AM
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Is the expression "The White House" as commonly heard in the media an example of synecdoche?


#40281 08/31/01 10:13 AM
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Yes. It is being used representatively for "the President" or more generally for "the agents of government" or some such phrase, presumably.


#40282 08/31/01 10:39 AM
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Is it just me or does anyone else here find this term, in a landscape of precise rhetorical meta-language, to be very general?


#40283 08/31/01 10:49 AM
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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


#40284 08/31/01 11:08 AM
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> 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 :-)


#40285 08/31/01 11:26 AM
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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.


#40286 08/31/01 12:09 PM
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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).



#40287 08/31/01 12:53 PM
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The synecdoche of a cynic duck.


#40288 08/31/01 02:40 PM
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than a toilet duck


#40289 08/31/01 02:46 PM
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A duck that works out at the White Dog Gym?


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