46

This happens specifically often in the technology press:

  • There's no point trying to ascribe motives to what Redmond [instead of "Microsoft"] does.
  • We'll see shortly if Cupertino [instead of "Apple"] thinks likewise ...

I'm certain its use is much wider though I can't think of many examples right now. Using "Detroit" as another name for the US auto industry is slightly wider:

  • Who says that Detroit does not sell cars Americans want to drive?

Anyway, I have a suspicion there is a name for this so what is it?

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  • 1
    This is an interesting question... :|
    – Alenanno
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 16:39
  • 8
    Or "Washington reacted strongly to Moscow's actions last Tuesday, but for the meantime, Beijing's reaction remains cool."
    – NateMPLS
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 17:10
  • 6
    "Houston, we have a problem."
    – Jon Purdy
    Commented May 27, 2011 at 4:30
  • My favourite (from James Bond?): “Vauxhall” to refer to MI6.
    – Konrad Rudolph
    Commented May 27, 2011 at 9:56

4 Answers 4

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35

You may be looking for metonymy.

If you're looking for other examples, governments are often referred to like this—at least, Westminster for the UK parliament, and Washington for the US government. (In fact, looking up Westminster on Wikipedia was how I found metonym.)

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  • 3
    Your examples Westminster and Washington are very good and made me think of another, Fleet Street for the British Press.
    – hippietrail
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 16:44
  • 2
    @hippietrail: And Wall Street for the financial industry :)
    – John Bartholomew
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 16:45
  • 2
    And Madison Avenue for the advertising industry. And any number of smaller ones, like Jermyn Street for the fancy men's shirt retailing industry.
    – Joel Spolsky
    Commented May 27, 2011 at 0:59
  • 4
    Hollywood is perhaps the most famous city metonym.
    – Colin Pickard
    Commented May 27, 2011 at 10:15
  • 1
    @e100: - and "Tin Pan Alley" for America's music industry, although the street that actually existed, or at least that use of it, is long gone.
    – Hexagon Tiling
    Commented Mar 19, 2012 at 22:38
22

This is an example of synecdoche.

In these examples, the company HQ is a part of the city as a whole. The city is being used as a metaphor for the company.

I wonder if these are being used in a slightly euphemistic way. It allows one to refer to the company without referring to directly, perhaps granting license to say something negative about the company with imagined impunity.

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  • 3
    A nod to answers pointing to metonymy as the answer. Synecdoche is a form of metonymy.
    – Dancrumb
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 16:39
  • Sometimes it's used as an aside eg Redmond or 'the chocolate factory' (for google) or just as shorthand, 'the pentagon' for the US military high command.
    – mgb
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 16:40
  • I really love this word but in Google searches metonymy came up much more often. I'll have to think about it some more...
    – hippietrail
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 17:02
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    @hippietrail: I wouldn't take popularity as an indicator of technical correctness!
    – user1579
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 17:55
  • 3
    note: synecdoche does not rhyme with brioche. It's sih-NEK-duh-kee
    – nohat
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 20:59
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To answer the question of difference between Dancrumb's synecdoche and John Bartholomew's metonym, Wikipedia describes it thusly:

When the distinction is made, it is the following: when A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a component of B and a metonym if A is commonly associated with B but not actually part of its whole.

Redmond and Cupertino are not part of their associated companies. Therefore, metonym is the more appropriate term. Furthermore, both appear on the list of metonyms.

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  • The people making the case for synecdoche are arguing the opposite, that the company headquarters is part of the associated town.
    – Kevin
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 21:58
  • @Iceman: They are pretty interchangeable. If you were to make a distinction, the distinction would be what is in my answer. The definition for synecdoche does seem to include either pattern so... it is very possible Wikipedia is just being incorrectly pedantic on one specific page.
    – MrHen
    Commented May 26, 2011 at 22:43
  • So is “pars pro toto” a synonym for synecdoche? My teachers at school could never agree, and the remark in the Wikipedia article is completely unintelligible to me.
    – Konrad Rudolph
    Commented May 27, 2011 at 9:55
-2

Placenames (specifically) in this context are toponyms, (the original sense, before the word referred to just 'place names in general'. But toponymy is the study of place names, so not appropriate here: perhaps a new word needs to be coined for the trope.

(thanks for the suggestions)

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  • @Tim, this is really more appropriate as a comment.
    – Kit Z. Fox ♦
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 14:01
  • @Tim, no offence meant, but I think this would be more appropriate as a comment rather than a full-fledged answer.
    – Alain Pannetier Φ
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 14:01
  • @Kit/Alain: do you really think so? It seemed to me a tentative answer (toponym) to the question asked, though the discussion seems to have veered off. I'd value your views.
    – Tim Lymington
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 14:12
  • Well, if it's an answer, you probably shouldn't say that it's not. :-)
    – Kit Z. Fox ♦
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 14:14
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    @Tim, if you believe toponymy qualifies for an answer, then I'll have to disagree. Hence my down vote. As you actually seem to have found out on your own, toponymy is a science studying place names and more precisely focusing on their origin and meaning. For instance in the sentence "Toponymy in England shows that many place names in the British Isles have a substrate of Celtic origin".
    – Alain Pannetier Φ
    Commented Jul 15, 2011 at 14:41

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