The New York Times puzzle for March 14th had a clue reminiscent of those infamous SAT analogy questions: 36a. "The White House," for "the presidency," e.g. The answer was METONYM, a thoroughly unfamiliar term. Metonymy is the practice of substituting an associated thing for the actual subject, often putting a concrete noun in place of an abstract one. When they say that you can't fight city hall, they mean, metonymically, that you can't fight the government.
I did not know.
No comments:
Post a Comment