21.7.07

Wordiness: synecdoche

This is one of those words whose meanings I can't keep in my brain. I've looked it up a dozen times and it still eludes me, even though it's an extremely useful word.

Even now, writing this post, I need to go back and look it up again:
synecdoche n. a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich man. (source: Dictionary.com)
I looked it up a few days ago because it was used on the extremely articulate Darren Barefoot's blog. I never thought I'd see "cereal box" and "synecdoche" in the same sentence, but there you go.

It's a good thing thing I'm not taking General Paper examinations anymore, because I would next have to figure out how to use "synecdoche" in a sentence to illustrate its meaning, and man, I'm still stumped on that one.

-----|||||-----

Technorati Tags: ,

Labels:

3 Comments:

At 7/22/2007 10:03 pm , Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 7/22/2007 11:35 pm , Blogger Unknown said...

Now try getting students to understand the subtle differences between metaphor, metonymy AND synecdoche.

 
At 7/24/2007 2:55 am , Blogger limegreenspyda said...

gosh. i was just going to say the almost same thing as james. except without the word 'metaphor'.

no great shakes at language here, so i'm wondering about the difference between metonymy and synecdoche (thank god for the pronunciation key...).

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

 
-->