Re: On the subject of idioms ...

Andreas Johansson wrote:
> In Meghean it's considered nifty and sophisticated to refer to abstract
> concepts
> by mentioning two related concrete things instead. So, one might say
> _conich oa
> teoa_ "spear and fire" for "war", or _inde oa mañha_ "coin and ship" for
> trade.
Very nice!! I wish I'd thought of that.........
>
> Is there a name for this sort of idiom? It's a case of pars pro toto
> (partes pro
> toto?), but is there something more specific?
>
I know it has a name, but...  I thought it was _antonomasia_ or
_paronomasia_; the first is possible though not quite... according to AHD it
means the use of a title, or name, to describe a person or class of people
(e.g. "Your/His/Her Majesty", or calling a traitor a "Benedict Arnold"); but
other sources suggest it might be the use of attributes to refer to a
whole-- so yours would count. (Paronomasia refers to punning...........)

Oh never mind. It's metonymy; see--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy

Well, OTOH...scroll down a bit in that entry; it might also be synecdoche

Hope this helps :-}

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