What is the difference between a synecdoche and a metonymy?
It’s a very clever distinction. From Wikipedia: Synecdoche, where a specific part of something is taken to refer to the whole, is usually understood as a specific kind of metonymy. Sometimes, however, people make an absolute distinction between a metonymy and a synecdoche, treating metonymy as different from rather than inclusive of synecdoche. There is a similar problem with the usage of simile and metaphor. When the distinction is made, it is the following: when A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a part of B and a metonym if A is commonly associated with B but not a part of it. Thus, “The White House said” would be a metonymy for the president and his staff, because the White House (A) is n
