Metonymy is a rhetorical [[figure]] that substitutes one thing for something else "contiguously" connected to it. However, that's actually very vague.[^1] In practice, metonymy is actually [[metonymy is really hard to define|really hard to define]]. ###### Here are some obvious examples: - "Nice *wheels*." - "The *White House* invaded [place]" - "Pass me *that Dickens* on the shelf there." - "I need another *pair of eyes*. Can you help?" I also have a page with [[interesting examples of metonymy|more interesting examples]]. ### Concepts and ideas - I think that metonymy is (or might be) [[metonymy is — or might be — fundamentally indexical|fundamentally indexical]] - metonymy [[metonymy relies on pre-existing chains of knowledge|relies on pre-existing knowledge]] - one or more metonymic shifts are often [[metaphors often rely on one or several metonymic shifts|what make metaphors work in the first place]] - It's really hard to [[metonymy is really hard to define|define metonymy]] and to differentiate it metonymy [[metonymy is really hard to differentiate from synecdoche|from synecdoche]] - [[Charles Dickens]]'s style [[Dickens's style blurs metaphor and metonymy|blurs metaphor and metonymy]] [^1]: Hugh Bredin, getting frustrated: "contiguity seems in fact to refer to any type of relation whatsoever, other than similarity" ([[Bredin 1984 - Metonymy|p. 47]])