[[Charles Dickens|Charles Dickens's]] writing or literary [[style]] is extremely *rich*. It's dense. One aspect of this is the fact that [[Dickens's style blurs metaphor and metonymy|his style blurs metaphor and metonymy]]. ## Examples ### Metonymy One big aspect of this is the fact that [[Dickens's style blurs metaphor and metonymy|his style blurs metaphor and metonymy]]. But even weird blurring aside, even the "vanilla" version of metonymy is dense. The opening of [[Bleak House (1852-53)]] is just metonymy after metonymy: > Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice ==arises, fully inflated, in the back settlements of **the fog**==, and says, "Will your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin. > > Leaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in the rafters of the roof, ==the very little counsel drops, and **the fog knows him no more**==. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him. >"Begludship's pardon—==victim of rash action—brains==." Indeed, the fact that all the main characters being referred to in the opening—Richard, Ada, Esther, Mr. Jarndyce, etc.—have not even been properly named _in_ the opening is an example of metonymy: they're referred to as the "young girl," wait, no... the "boy," or, sorry, the "young people." Mr. Jarndyce isn't named, but we do know that > He is a cousin, several times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin. Metonymy after metonymy. It's _dense_. ### Singular/plural collective nouns wuzza what now? In English, a "singular" noun can be collective. You can say things like "_The family_ did this" or "_The group_ did that." These nouns clearly indicate a group of more than one thing, but grammatically they're treated as singular. They're one thing. They're "a" group. Dickens likes to play with this fact. Knud Sørensen points this out in his book, [[Charles Dickens - Linguistic Innovator (1985)|Charles Dickens: Linguistic Innovator (1985)]]. His first example is from [[Bleak House (1852-53)]]: > The whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night, and can do nothing but wrap up its many heads ([[Bleak House (1852-53)|BH]], ch 33) The collective noun is "The whole court," and so the verb for it — "is" — is singular. Okay so far. But Dickens also says the whole court "can do nothing but wrap up *its many heads*," which draws attention to the fact that it *is* a collective of many things. It's a small thing, but it speaks to the richness of Dickens's descriptions.