{"id":50362,"date":"2021-02-21T17:15:09","date_gmt":"2021-02-21T22:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=50362"},"modified":"2021-02-21T17:16:50","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T22:16:50","slug":"oxymoronic-metonymy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=50362","title":{"rendered":"Oxymoronic metonymy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Robinson Meyer, \"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2021\/02\/what-went-wrong-texas\/618104\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Texas Failed Because It Did Not Plan<\/a>\", <em>The Atlantic<\/em> 2\/21\/2021:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The Texas grid is named after the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the agency in charge of managing it. (Yes,\u00a0<i>reliability\u00a0<\/i>is in the name\u2014making ERCOT perhaps the sole instance of oxymoronic metonymy in English.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In case you're not quite sure what the words mean:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/oxymoron\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oxymoron<\/a><\/strong><\/em>: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (such as <em>cruel kindness<\/em>)<br \/>\n<em>broadly<\/em> : something (such as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/metonymy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Metonymy<\/a><\/strong><\/em>: a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated (such as \"crown\" in \"lands belonging to the crown\")<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Meyer's quip confuses me. ERCOT's name is ironic, since lack of reliability is apparently built in to the decision to cut the state off from the rest of the country's electric grid. But I'm not clear where the oxymoron comes in.<\/p>\n<p>And I'm even less clear why metonymony is involved in the name, unless it's because the council's name is applied to the grid it manages.<\/p>\n<p>No doubt some readers will be able to explain this to me.<\/p>\n<p>But more interestingly, are there (other?) examples of \"oxymoronic metonymy\" in English or in other languages?<\/p>\n<p>[h\/t Robert Shackleton]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robinson Meyer, \"Texas Failed Because It Did Not Plan\", The Atlantic 2\/21\/2021: The Texas grid is named after the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the agency in charge of managing it. (Yes,\u00a0reliability\u00a0is in the name\u2014making ERCOT perhaps the sole instance of oxymoronic metonymy in English.)\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50362"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50366,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50362\/revisions\/50366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}