Thursday, August 14, 2014

Mentonymy

It has been a while since we have explored an uncommon vocabulary word. Mentonymy is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is called not by its name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept.

For example, "Wall Street" is used as a metonymously to describe the US financial and corporate sector and "Hollywood" is used as a metonym for the US film industry.

Let's look at some mentonymy examples from the farm.


The Market, is a  mentonymy for the Rochester Downtown Farmers Market.

Compost, is a mentonymy for the humus that remains after micro-organisms break down organic matter.

Organic, is a mentonymy for all things chemical free in the garden.

Weed, is a mentonymy for all plants in the wrong place. Corn in a bean field is a weed.

If you think of more farming mentonymys I'd be interested to know your favorites.







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