ANTONOMASIA AND CONVERSION Antonomasia antonomasia is a rhetoric way of giving an appropriate name or title to someone or something. The epithet or appellative is usually inspired by a specific character, a particular physical trait, or some outstanding feats or deeds of that person or thing and are not just any random names. For instance, when we hear the name of 'Mahatma Gandhi', the first thing that strikes our mind is 'Father of The Nation'. This is exactly what antonomasia means. This figure of speech is usually employed to give a general idea about that person or thing. In India, normally when a child wins a cup in some competition, the proud parents usually say, "Here is my Sher (Lion) with the cup." In reality, epithets like this make the person feel proud and add certain amount of grandeur to their personal appeal. Antonomasia is also known as nominatio, pronominatio and prosonomasia and is at times spelt as 'antinomasia'. The word 'antonomasia' comes from the Greek word 'antonomazein', which means to 'name differently' or 'instead of'. Antonomasia is all about substitution of names for a person with a praiseworthy appellation like brave, coward, furious, clever, and casanova and so on. Even in our daily dialogues, we tend to use antonomasia for complimenting or even abusing someone. Metaphor might look similar to antonomasia, but it is clearly not. The importance of using Antonomasia Antonomasia can provide someone with a strong epithet which further celebrates and memorializes their great deeds. In advertising and pop culture, such wording can also further celebrate the famous, such as The Beatles as “The Fab Four.” Uses for antonomasia vary slightly depending on the time period. In the past, antonomasia would be used to designate class members, as oftentimes people’s names were linked to their professions. Antonomasia was also used in the past to give positive names to strong warriors and negative names to weak or nasty people. Here are a few examples of antonomasia in the past: § Aristotle as “The Philosopher” § Winston Churchill as “The Great Commoner” § William Shakespeare as “The Bard” In this way, the past is similar to the present, as we tend to use antonomasia purely for enjoyment and fun with nicknames. Oftentimes, antonomasia is used to call attention to a certain characteristic. Example 1 Imagine that you have a friend who is a fantastic chef, and you want to say hello. Normal sentence: “Oh, look! Sam’s arrived!” Sentence with Antonomasia: “Oh, look! The great chef has arrived!” Here, the use of antonomasia allows you to greet your friend with a nickname which also reveals something about his character: he’s a great chef. Popular Antonomasia Ø Tarzan – wild Ø Solomon - a wise man Ø Casanova - a philanderer Ø The Bard of Avon - William Ø Beowulf - a myth Ø The Dark Knight – Batman Ø The Führer - Adolf Hitler Ø Judas - Betrayer Ø Beckham – footballer Ø The Iron Lady - Margaret Thatcher Ø The King of Pop - Michael Jackson Ø An Einstein - an intelligent person http://literaryterms.net/antonomasia/ http://fos.iloveindia.com/antonomasia-examples.html conversion conversion is a word-formations process that assigns an existing word to a different word class (part of speech) or syntactic category. This process is also known as a functional shift or zero derivation. In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation, is a kind of word formation; specifically, it is the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form. Conversion is more productive in some languages than in others; in English it is a fairly productive process. Often a word of one lexical category (part of speech) is converted from a word of another lexical category; for example, the noun green in golf (referring to a putting-green) is derived ultimately from the adjective green. Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and unnotable in English; much more remarked upon is verbing, the creation of a verb by a converting a noun or other word. The boundary between conversion and functional shift (the extension of an existing word to take on a new syntactic function) is not well-defined. Example : 1. Let's not Rumsfeld Afghanistan." (Senator Lindsey Graham, quoted in Time magazine, Aug. 24, 2009) 2. "Boyes spent the night with Mr. Vaughan, and they breakfasted together in the usual way upon bacon and eggs, toast, marmalade and coffee." (Dorothy L. Sayers, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, 1928) 3. "One writer who went on a tour of New York's Harlem district was shown the place where Adam C. Powell was 'funeralised.' Another letter detailed an American friend's eagerness to see the Prince of Wales 'coronated.' On a flight to Boston, flight attendants promised passengers they would soon 'beverage,' but later, because of adverse weather conditions, they said they were 'unable to complete beverisation.' Asked about this trend, one American quipped: 'Any noun can be verbed.'" (Kevin Courtney, "Con Text Verbing." The Irish Times, March 18, 2008) http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/conversterm.htm http://en.termwiki.com/EN/zero-derivation