Synecdoche: Difference between revisions

=== Similarities and Differences ===

According to Bredin, “synecdochic relations are structural, and metonymical relations are extrinsic – relations, in the one case, between particulars and their parts, and in the other case between particulars and other particulars” (54).<ref name=Ref4/> “Synecdoche deals with the intra-relativity: the relation of the whole and its parts. The individual is so far finished as to be characterized by a part of itself” (252).<ref name=Ref5/> While synecdoche focuses on intra-relativity (the relation of the whole and its parts), metonymy focuses on extra-relativity (the “intuitions of necessary relation”).  In other words, "Every metonymy is a synecdoche, but not every synecdoche is a metonymy. This rule is true because a metonymy must not only be a part of the root word, making a synecdoche, but also be a unique attribute of or associated with the root word" (Modugno).<ref name=Ref7/> In “A Grouping of Figures of Speech, Based upon the Principle of Their Effectiveness” by Herbert Eveleth Greene writes, “Metonymy names things at a slight remove: instead of naming the thing itself, it names something associated with it, and trusts to the imagination to supply what is not stated, – both the thing unnamed and the relation which bridges the gulf between the two” (438).<ref name=Ref6/> For example, “War is sad.”  On the other hand, synecdoche deals with words or relations between words such as alternate names for the same thing. For example, nickel can be interchanged with five coin piece (Bredin 52).<ref name=Ref4/>