{"id":1000,"date":"2019-10-03T16:28:25","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T20:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=1000"},"modified":"2019-10-06T12:46:08","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T16:46:08","slug":"word-of-the-week-synecdoche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/2019\/10\/03\/word-of-the-week-synecdoche\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Synecdoche"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2019\/10\/news-press.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1001\" src=\"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2019\/10\/news-press.jpg\" alt=\"Newspaper Press\" width=\"596\" height=\"479\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ever wondered why we say &#8220;The Press&#8221; today, when so much news is not printed? It&#8217;s an example of synecdoche. Lee Chaharyn, of UR&#8217;s Collegiate Licensing &amp; Special Projects, nominated this excellent word. Though not part of my everyday parlance, it serves a wonderful purpose. I hope to use it; no other word quite fits its meaning.<\/p>\n<p>The word reared its head not long ago. In what may soon be forgotten amid a tumult of worse news, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/outlook\/2019\/09\/10\/perfect-synecdoche-trump-presidency\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a media event involving a Sharpie marker<\/a> provided a synecdoche for how the Executive Branch of government conducts business.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever you thought of that news item, it did bring a worthy word back onto stage. A 15th Century loan-word from Latin,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oed.com\/view\/Entry\/196458?redirectedFrom=synecdoche&amp;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">as the OED puts it<\/a>, synecdoche occurs when a &#8220;more inclusive term is used for a less inclusive one or vice versa.&#8221; Only examples suffice here:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Our family represents the nation. (For good or ill)<\/li>\n<li>We need more boots on the ground. (Boots stands in for more people in that place)<\/li>\n<li>We broke bread together. (I do hope you ate other things).<\/li>\n<li>Society is to blame! (All of them? In a Monty Python skit, after a murderer pleads this, a detective replies &#8220;Agreed. We&#8217;ll be charging them too.&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In academic writing, it&#8217;s wise to avoid some examples like the last. They can lead a novice writer into sweeping generalizations such as &#8220;Society supports stronger protection for minors.&#8221; I find it hard to believe that 300-million-plus Americans could agree to anything, in 2019. So qualify that claim or be ready to pile on credible evidence.<\/p>\n<p>There are few alternatives to our Word of the Week. It&#8217;s not quite accurate to use &#8220;microcosm&#8221; as a synonym for synecdoche, since a microcosm works only one way, showing how something\u00a0 particular can represent something general, as in &#8220;the convicted teacher&#8217;s constant drinking served as a microcosm for all the problems at the dysfunctional school.&#8221; One cannot reverse &#8220;microcosm&#8221; as one can for synecdoche, without employing the less-common &#8220;macrocosm.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We might fall back on &#8220;symbolize&#8221; to represent how a part can indicate something about a whole, but reversing it, so &#8220;the gridlock in Congress symbolized the troubles in the Smith family&#8221; makes no sense. Mr. Smith may have gone to Washington, but. . .<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Embody&#8221; might bridge the gap, as in &#8220;the gridlock in Congress embodied so many smaller problems,&#8221; yet that use of &#8220;embody&#8221; bothers me. I&#8217;d prefer precision or a different synecdoche.<\/p>\n<p>Please send us words and metaphors useful in academic writing by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.<\/p>\n<p>See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/metaphor-of-the-month\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/word-of-the-week\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Image of printing press courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Newspaper_publishing_-_N.Y._Herald-_Corner_of_press_room_LCCN2004670982.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wikipedia Commons<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever wondered why we say &#8220;The Press&#8221; today, when so much news is not printed? It&#8217;s an example of synecdoche. Lee Chaharyn, of UR&#8217;s Collegiate Licensing &amp; Special Projects, nominated this excellent word. Though not part of my everyday parlance, it serves a wonderful purpose. I hope to use it; no other word quite fits &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/2019\/10\/03\/word-of-the-week-synecdoche\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Word of the Week! Synecdoche<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6904,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2516,87406,2520,40197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-loan-word","category-usage","category-vocabulary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6904"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}