Antonomasia

Antonomasia is a lexical stylistic device in which a proper name is used instead of a common noun or vice versa. Logical meaning serves to denote concepts and thus to classify individual objects into groups (classes). The nominal meaning of a proper name is suppressed by its logical meaning and acquires the new – nominal – component. Nominal meaning has no classifying power for it applies to one single individual object with the aim not of classifying it constituting a definite group, but, on the contrary with the aim of singling it out of the group of similar objects, of individualizing one particular object. The word “Mary” does not indicate if the denoted object refers to the class of women, girls, boats, cats, etc. But in example: “He took little satisfaction in telling each Mary, something…” the attribute “each”, used with the name, turns it into a common noun denoting any woman. Here we deal with a case of antonomasia of the first type.

Another type of antonomasia we meet when a common noun is still clearly perceived as a proper name. So, no speaker of English today has it in his mind that such popular English surnames as Mr.Smith or Mr.Brown used to mean occupation and the color. While such names as Mr.Snake or Mr.Backbite immediately raise associations with certain human qualities due to the denotational meaning of the words “snake” and “backbite”.

Antonomasia is created mainly by nouns, more seldom by attributive combinations (as in “Dr.Fresh Air”) or phrases (as in “Mr.What’s-his-name’).

Examples: 1) a Solomon for a wise ruler; 2) the Bard for Shakespeare

Simile. Simile is a kind of imaginative comparison based on intensification of one feature of the concept. Ordinary comparison and simile must not be confused. Comparison means weighing two objects belonging to one class of things with the purpose of establishing the degree of their sameness or difference. To use a simile is to characterize one object by bringing it into contact with another object belonging to an entirely different class of things. Comparison takes into consideration all properties of the two objects. Simile excludes all the properties of the two objects except one which is made common to them.

E.g. The boy seems to be as clever as his mother. ‘Boy’ and ‘mother’ belong to same class of objects – human beings – so it is an ordinary comparison.

But: ‘Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare’. (Byron) ‘Maidens’ and ‘moths’ belong to different classes of objects and Byron has found the concept ‘moth’ to indicate one of the secondary features of the concept ‘maiden’, i.e. being easily lured. The object characterized is seen in quite a new and unexpected light.

Similes have formal elements in their structure: connectives like, as, such as, as if, seem.

Examples:

1. cheeks like roses

2. She's as fierce as a tiger

3. Dickens uses simile in Great Expectations: “with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed to have somehow got mixed with their own whites.”

4. Or, in David Copperfield, Dora's cousin “in the Life-Guards, with such long legs that he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else”.