What is the linguistic term used when a place is associated with building or historical figure(s)

Question

What is the linguistic term used when a place is associated with a particular building or historical figure(s)?

For example Westminster is associated with the Houses of Parliament and the Prime Minister, such that, when you think of Westminster you instantly think of the Houses of Parliament).

Metonymy is the device capitalising on the association you speak about rather than the cognitive phenomenon. Also, the question has essentially been asked here before, though not with such tight specification ('The kettle boiled' is also an example of metonymy). — Edwin Ashworth, Jul 01 '16 at 17:00
Related: 1 What is the term to describe the use of “City Hall” in “you can't fight City Hall”?, 2 What is the word to describe a single object to represent the many? 3 When part of an object becomes the name for the whole — Mari-Lou A, Jul 01 '16 at 18:17
4 What's the linguistic term for when you use an object in place of a person who uses or is associated with that object? 5 What term describes the replacement of a full description of an object with a reference to one of its specific features? — Mari-Lou A, Jul 01 '16 at 18:24
@Mari-Lou A I think that there should be a 'duplicate answer' CV reason; there must be thousands of possible variations on 'What is the linguistic term used when an organisation is associated with a venue, the venue being named as a substitute for the organisation?' / 'What is the linguistic term used when military might/force ... a weapon?' — Edwin Ashworth, Jul 01 '16 at 18:43
@EdwinAshworth sigh why is this question tagged orthography? I can't find an open question that is a duplicate of this. The request is a well written question, thanks also to TrevorD's edit, maybe we could use this post to close future questions asking about the same topic. — Mari-Lou A, Jul 01 '16 at 19:12

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

5

Metonymy — Wikipedia

Metonymy is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept.

For instance, Wall Street is often used metonymically to describe the U.S. financial and corporate banking sector, while Hollywood is used as a metonym for the U.S. film industry because of the fame and cultural identity of Hollywood, a district of the city of Los Angeles, California, as the historical center of American film studios and U.S. film stars.

_{See also: List of metonyms on Wikipedia}

From English Practice,

The word metonymy means ‘substitution of name’. An object may have several attributes. Metonymy involves the substitution of one of these attributes for the name of the object itself.

Study the example sentences given below:

"The crown has lost much of its power." (crown = the king/monarch)
"The kettle is boiling." (It is not the kettle but the water in it that is boiling.)
"Please address the chair." (chair = the chairman)

edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

Community

1

answered Jul 01 '16 at 15:23

NVZ

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Thank you so so much, I wish i knew about this site before my english lit and lang exam :) – Sophia Molloy Jul 01 '16 at 15:25
@SophiaMolloy It took me a while to go through all these figures of speech on Wikipedia. You can see the list for more info. – NVZ Jul 01 '16 at 15:26
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@SophiaMolloy I note that you have already accepted the answer from NVZ. It is quite normal on this site not to accept an answer immediately, but to wait some time to see what alternative answers are offered, so that you can make a choice. Because the authour of the Accepted Answer gets points for it, having accepted an answer prematurely can discourage others from offering alternative answers. – TrevorD Jul 01 '16 at 15:45
Ahh sure thing, im new and just getting to grips with the site – Sophia Molloy Jul 01 '16 at 17:51
@SophiaMolloy In case you're going to uncheck my answer as helpful, please do visit this page sometime later and accept the one you think is most helpful. ;) – NVZ Jul 01 '16 at 17:52
I'm not sure I agree with your last example; I'm inclined to interpret it as nothing but an abbreviation. – Tin Wizard Jul 01 '16 at 21:15
@Amadeus9 It is a metonym and an obvious shortened version as well. It's very commonly used as a gender-neutral alternative to chairman or chairwoman. – NVZ Jul 01 '16 at 23:05

What is the linguistic term used when a place is associated with building or historical figure(s)

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