Comments on: Extremely Great Tees at Insanely Great Tees

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:01:48 +0000

Eden: we actually did have the same Latin teacher! I agree that ‘coffee’ would be metonymy for ‘caffeine’, but ‘caffeine’ would be synecdoche for ‘coffee’. I think the most interesting one so far is ‘cup’ or ‘cuppa’ for something, because not only is the cup actually contiguous with the substance you’re referring to, but in English (and lots of other languages) you use ‘cup of…’ to chop up what would otherwise be a mass noun (’coffee’) into countable units (’10 cups of coffee, please!’ but not ‘10 coffees, please!’ under most circumstances). So I guess you could argue that the cup is actually an intrinsic part of the coffee?

By: MiNGLED

MiNGLED — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:37:43 +0000

Other British slang for tea: brew, cha, builders. Cuppa is almost never used to refer to coffee, “Fancy a cuppa?” would always result in a tea. Not that I’m biased against coffee.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:27:34 +0000

I’m not smart enough to participate in this comment session.

By: Eden

Eden — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:42:53 +0000

Have to agree with Greg on this one. A synecdoche for coffee (or, more than likely, tea) would be the British term, “cuppa.” Or, in America, we might say, “Can I pour you a cup?”

So did you both have the same high school Latin teacher?

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:04:27 +0000

My point was that coffee may be metonymy for caffeine (or perhaps more accurately, caffeinated beverages in general). I checked it out on Wikipedia, and I feel like this usage is fairly analogous to some of the examples they give at the bottom.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:43:57 +0000

I think caffeine is synecdoche for coffee, in the normal use (i.e., non-Terence Turner) of the word. Part for the whole and all that, right? Metonymy for coffee would be… brew, perhaps? Or cup? Since you brew coffee, and it is served in a cup.

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 03:29:03 +0000

Yeah! I learned the word in my high school Latin class. It’s pretty sweet.

And now I see how I misinterpreted your comment. Oops. I am a non-coffee drinker as well, so I sympathize.

By: Eden

Eden — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 03:19:04 +0000

Sorry I didn’t make it clear. No coffee enters this temple –well, except for the occasional social sip.

But this mug of hot chocolate is really hitting the spot right now.

BTW — had to look up “metonymy”. Great word!

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:59:44 +0000

Can you not have chocolate? If that’s the case, then don’t worry—you’re really not missing out on much. Chocolate happens to be the Most Overrated Foodstuff Ever.

At any rate, my natural inclination is to say it’s coffee, and by metonymy, caffeine. Thus, you can look forward to a happy and inspired existence.

By: Eden

Eden — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:47:53 +0000

The secret ingredient in the formula wouldn’t happen to be hot chocolate would it? Otherwise I’m doomed to an inspiration-free life.