The use of "head of cattle" to refer to the group of cattle is synecdoche. MWCD10 <a href="http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=synecdoche">defines</a> <em>synecdoche</em> as "a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (as fifty sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society for high society), the species for the genus (as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the name of the material for the thing made (as boards for stage)"
Here's an interesting [1] <a href="http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-syn1.htm">link</a> that describes the difference between synecdoche and metonymy from the excellent World Wide Words site. I suppose that using the word "link" to refer to contents of a web page is itself an example of metonymy.
[1] Interesting for those that are interested in amateur linguistics, that is. :-)
01-06-2003, 10:57 AM
Hybrid Mode
