Chair, Bench etc

[fredpuli47]

What's the word for using 'Chair' and Bench for the office itself or the person(s) occupying that office, whereby we substitute a symbol or feature for the office itself ? Crown is another example. (Regina versus Smith is 'the Crown versus Smith' as well as 'The Queen versus Smith' )

[Quizmonster]

Metonymy, perhaps? That's the figure of speech seen in "Clarence House today announced..." or "The ring is a hard mistress."

[Peter Pedant]

Metaphor is the word that covers all this.

a metonym is when you call the person after a thing (the opposite is personification) So if your friend Fred has spikey hair and you ccall him Spike, then Spike is the metonym.

Miosis is when you call someone after a small bit of him - a factory hand for a worker, is an example, or a head for a cow or sheep. uusally the bit is the important bit - the worker works with his hands. You wouldnt for example say you employ ten belly buttons.

try googling figures of speech

[fredpuli47]

'Try googling ' figures of speech' ? Indeed.It's metonymy and the word 'chair' is a metonym.The OED gives 'Stokes the name of the inventor...has , by metonymy, come to mean the trench mortar gun itself' and googled results include this from Shakespeare ; ' I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to the petticoat' where the clothing stands for man and woman [As You Like It] and 'Washington' used for the US government.

Metaphor has an implicit comparison: He was a lion' meaning he was possessed of qualities like those of a lion. I don't think we are saying that a judge is like a piece of heavy wooden furniture, has its qualities, when we talk of the Bench (though I confess I can just see that in some judges, I hope the comparison is not universally made)

[Quizmonster]

Thanks for that, Fred! 'All hands on deck' and 'Five hundred of cattle' are examples of synecdoche.

[Quizmonster]

I should, obviously, have written 'head of cattle' above.

[Quizmonster]

MIosis is an eye problem; mEiosis is a figure of speech involving understatement, as when a clearly mortally-wounded hero might say, "'Tis but a flesh wound!" (I'm thinking of the Black Knight in Monty Python's 'Holy Grail' here.)