figures of speech - What is the difference between metonymy and synecdoche?


What is the difference between metonymy and synecdoche?



Answer



In practice, there isn't much difference: you could arguably pick just one of the terms and use it to describe both types of rhetorical substitution. (I like metonymy: it's easier to spell, more spelling checkers know it, and the meaning is more apparent to me: meta+name.)


The difference, to the extent that it exists at all, is whether the attribute that is substituting for the whole is part of the whole (synecdoche), or merely associated with it (metonymy). So "suits" instead of "officials" is metonymy (officials wear suits, but last I checked, the clothing is not permanently attached to their skin), while "hands" for "workmen" is synecdoche.


You could also make a case for using metonymy for any example where a smaller part or attribute substitutes for a larger part or attribute, and reserving synecdoche for examples where the larger stands for the smaller, or the container for the contents. Under this interpretation, both "suits" and "hands" could be considered metonyms, and synecdoche would be something like "General Motors announced cutbacks" — it was presumably a spokesperson who issued such a statement on behalf of the CEO or board of directors, since General Motors is not a single entity and does not possess speech capabilities.


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