Friday, August 31, 2012

TAMPA, Fla.--In response to yesterday's column, reader Paul Wicker writes: "I was wildly disappointed in the rambling wet-shoe autobiographical romp through parts of Tampa when it struck me that this column was a metaphor about the RNC shutting down the convention for no reason leaving lots of smart folk with nothing to do. Seen in that light, it was brilliant!"
Certainly a nice compliment, but it was a synecdoche, not a metaphor.

synecdochesynecdoche, A whole is represented by naming one of its parts (genus named for species), or vice versa (species named for genus).
synecdochea 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 thespecial, as in ten sail  for ten ships  or a Croesus  for a rich man.
synecdoche : a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (asfifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society forhigh society), the species for the genus (as cutthroat forassassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (asboards for stage)