Close

Meet Mr. Metonymy (Endnotes)

1. Although it is common to think of figures of speech as words that do not mean what they say, many figures of speech give emphasis in other ways. Figures such as Polysyndeton, Ellipsis and Polyptoton are good examples of this. The error to be guarded against is the common misconception that if something is figurative, any wild or fanciful explanation of the text is valid. This is not the case. The Bible is �God- breathed� (2 Tim. 3:16), and God has the right to use figures of speech as He sees fit. It is the responsibility of the reader to learn to recognize these, as he must do with, say, geographical references throughout the Bible. It is up to the reader to take the time to learn about the geography so those references can be properly understood. The reader does not guess at geographical references and hope he is right. The same is true with figures of speech. Close

2. One kind of Metonymy is the exchange of one noun for another related noun. For the most part, our use of this figure of speech is so natural that we do not even realize we are using it. We say �the whole school showed up for the senior prom� when we actually mean the students, not the �school� itself. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language [William Morris, ed., (American Heritage Pub. Co., Inc., Boston, 1969) page 826] gives the following example: �The words sword and sex are metonymical designations for military career and womankind in the example �He abandoned the sword and the sex together.�� In his work Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, E.W. Bullinger gives four classes of metonymy: the cause, the effect, the subject, and the adjunct, and spends seventy pages on the subject. Close