: Re: Combining an idiom with a metonymy I am not sure if this is possible. I would like to use a metonymy with an idiom, and it doesn't seem to be something people ever did, so it feels wrong.

@Kevin153

Vote Up Vote Down

The problem is more the meter of the sentence. How you say things makes as big of an impact as what you say.
The problem is furthered by the fact what you're trying to replace with "fedora hats", "mafia family". It feels bulky and cumbersome to the flow of the sentence. Most metonymies tend to be syllabalically shorter than what they replace. Sometimes the same length. They are almost never longer. "But 'fedora hats' is shorter than 'mafia family'!" But it's longer than "family."
In short, if you want to make a metonymy work better, try to use a three-syllable-or-less version.
This doesn't even start going into the issues based on if people will understand your metonymy. Establish that everyone is wearing fedoras then refer to the family as "hats" and that MAY work. Let's see how the sentence flows, knowing full well that this assumes fedoras were previously mentioned explicitly and clearly.

He was in the middle of our hats, celebrating our victory.

Sounds better to me. Is it perfect? Eh, not really, but perfection isn't the goal, improvement is.

(0)

Login to post a comment!