For lovers of words, and people passionate about academic descriptions of photographs and photography, this is yesterday’s big new word, encountered at Durham Uni’s Locating Photography conference.
A metonym is a word (or photograph) that relates to one thing while it refers within its content, to another. Dictionary.com gives these examples: ‘Washington is a metonym for the United States government‘; ‘plastic is a metonym for credit card‘. Big Ben might be a metonym for London, or for the Houses of Parliament. The Millennium Wink, has started to become a metonym for Gateshead.
If a word or image is metonymic it doesn’t merely reference, though. It doesn’t act as metaphor either: it’s a stand in.
Wikipedia has an entry for metonomy: “is the use of a word for a concept with which the original concept behind this word is associated“.
Hariman and Lucaites are collecting boots and hands as examples of visual metonyms of political action. Here are a couple more examples:
Sarah and Vik, who were married on the day same-sex relationships were granted legal status in the UK, one chill December day in their home town. One might say that this photograph is metonymic of the taboo of public displays of affection between gay people, and therefore of the discrimination they still face.
And here’s Oliviero Toscani’s notorious Bennetton ad. The clenched hands are a visual trope, certainly. But quite what is metonymic about this photograph is what fascinates us. I return again and again to the feeling that it signifies the way in which all races and tied to each other in this uneasy peace, but perhaps that is too trite an interpretation. Click through the photo for my Testino/Bennetton article.
More on yesterday at the conference as I write it up. Might even need it’s own tag. Thanks to the organisers and everyone who spoke, and whom we met, including the No Caption comedy duo, Jim Johnson and Lucy and her Cap’n Biscuit. It was a fascinating day.
Similar Posts:
- Experimenting with The Black Stripe
- Referring to Something in the Middle of the Night
- Liminal and Echolocation
- Feeburner Foul-up
- metonymic [2]
Popularity: 12% [?]
7 Comments
Rats! I was trying to figure out the significance of ‘metameme’!
Yeah, that’s logical, given that they were talking about visual tropes.
If you could take a photograph of a meme or trope, and would that then be a metameme? Huh? My brain is throbbing slightly from a mild excess of vino and its levered expansion via all this neue terminology.
Fun, eh?
An excellent (because brief and understandable!) discussion of the meaning of metonym and other figures of speech in David Lodge’s novel ‘Nice Work’.
Brenda wastes no time in increasing her word power and our understanding of how photography can represent and challenge and help us change the body politic. Thanks!
Ian: thanks for that reference. The Silk Cut advert, of course!
Hariman: it was a pleasure to meet you. No question that I will continue to learn from and reference your work.
I’ve not heard that definition before. Must admit had to read it a few times before I understood it but will no doubt sprinkle it liberaly in conversations from now on!
Haha, yes.
Like your use of wide angle in the wedding photographs on your website, Shaun. Am slowly compiling a resource for weddings, will add you if that’s okay.
3 Trackbacks
[...] metonymic [...]
[...] metonymic [...]
[...] was the big, clever word of 2009. (Metonym was last year.) It’s one of those words you think you know the meaning of, have used in [...]