TAN: Using METONYMS; was: O Duty (Was: "If")

John Cowan wrote:
>
> Sally Caves wrote (in response to Ed's remark that the stripping away of
metonym/metaphor):

> > Hmmm.  I'm not clear about this here.  How has this stripping made
> > possible the "major religions"?  I would think quite the opposite.  It
> > may have made modern science possible, but the major religions I see
> > on the other side of the fence in this argument.
>
John wrote:

> The religions of the Book have for the most part rejected a purely
> metaphorical world-view (this is that) for a metonymic one
> (this is put for that).  Ps, 72:17 (KJV) poetically says:
>
>         His [God's] name shall endure forever,
>         his name shall be continued as long as the sun.
I don't know, John... I'm uncomfortable with these generalizations
about the Good Book, which is a compendium of many many texts from many
ages
and cultures.  Yes, a wonderful metonym, God's Name, which appears
throughout
the Bible, especially in our Christian "Word."  But then:

                My sister, my bride, is a garden close-locked,
                A garden close-locked, a fountain sealed.


                Your parted lips behind your veil
                are like a pomegranate cut open.

A straight simile!

                ***

                If you are churlish and arrogant and fond of
                        filthy talk,
                Hold your tongue:
                For wringing out the milk produces curd
                And wringing the nose produces blood;
                So provocation leads to strife.

These are from the Solomonic texts, but what about Christ's parables?

                The Kingdom of God is like a mustard-seed.
                The Kingdom of God is like treasure lying buried in a field.

I think that metonym/metaphor/simile are used abundantly in both the
Hebrew Bible
and the New Testament.  But fine... that was my point.  I was contesting
the
notion that Ed Heil had raised that a stripping away of metonym or
metaphor
gave rise to both modern science "and the major religions."  That's what
I
was confused about.  Ed has since responded that he was simplifying Owen
Barfield,
much the way I once simplified Orin Gensler.  <G>  I've done some study
of
the use of images in Old English and Welsh... it was my dissertation.
But that
was a highly specialized study.  I will have to read Barfield; it's very
possible
that I referenced him fifteen years ago and have forgotten.  Unless he's
recent.
The name is very familiar, but I have a terrible memory these days.

> Typology, not metaphor, is the controlling metaphor of the Bible.  :-)
Really?

John 3:8:
>
> # 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth [desires], and thou hearest the
> # sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it
> # goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
> "Spirit" in this case = "pneuma", and a fully metaphorical translation
> of the last clause would be "That's what people are like who are
> born from the wind."
This strikes me as being a form of paranomasia rather than simply
metonym.
Pneuma as both wind and breath.

> In turn, the modern world has for the most part rejected the
> metonymic world-view for a simile-based one [this is like that],
> obscuring the deep differences between its two predecessors.
I didn't understand how "stripping away" metonyms contributed to the
major religions.  I think Ed had misspoken here.   But this is not
for Conlang.  I'm supposed to be finishing a Teonaht translation of
Boudewijn's lusty poem.  Where his poet is direct, my Teonivar is
metaphoric.  Returning to that task...

Sally