Whole sentence used to deliver a part of something:

During 2010, in the Winter Olympics, Canada added glory by winning 14 gold medals for the country. (The whole sentence is used to signify the part "Canada won 14 gold medals.")

"Friends, Romans, countrymen: lend me your ears." (Taken from Julius Caesar written by William Shakespeare; the most famous example of synecdoche).

"His eye met hers as she sat there paler and whiter than anyone in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her." (Face represents the whole person; a part used to refer to the whole. This is taken from The Lady or the Tiger By Frank R. Stockton).

As a rule, metonymy is expressed by nouns, less frequently - by substantivized numerals. It is used mostly in syntactical functions of nouns (subject, object, predicative). Metaphor operates on the linguistic basis. It proceeds from the similarity of semantic components of a word. Metonymy rests solely on the extralinguistic, actually existing relations between the phenomena, which are denoted by the words.

Some lexical stylistic devices are united into a small group because they have much in common both in the mechanism of their formation and their function. They are paronomasia, violation of phraseological units, zeugma, semantically false chains and nonsense of non-sequence. The effect of these stylistic devices is humorous. They are called play on words or pun. Pun is the humorous or ludicrous use of a word in more than one sense.

Paronyms are words similar in (though not identical) in sound, but different in meaning. Co-occurrence of paronyms is called paronomasia.

“When I am dead, I hope it may be said:

‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read’.” Hilaire Belloc’s epigram “On Books”

Dieting is a matter of life and breadth.

Speaking ill of the dead is a grave mistake.

At the electric company: We would be delighted if you send in your bill. However, if you don"t, you will be.

Contextual conditions lead to the simultaneous realization of two meanings and to the formation of pun. They may vary. It can be misinterpretation of one speaker’s utterance by the other. It results in his remark, which deals with a different meaning, of the misinterpreted word or its homonym. Punning may be the result of the speaker’s intended violation of the listener’s expectation:

“There comes a period in every man’s life, but she is just a semicolon in his.” Misinterpretation may be caused by the phonetic similarity of two homonyms:

“The Importance of Being Earnest” by O.Wilde.

Zeugma is the use of a word in the same grammatical relation of two adjacent words in the context, one metaphorical and the other literal in sense. Zeugma is highly characteristic of English prose of previous and contemporary centuries: “He lost his hat and his temper”. Polysemantic verbs have a practically unlimited lexical valency. They can be combined with nouns of most varying semantic groups. They may be used with two or more homogeneous members, which are not connected semantically:

“Medora took heart, a cheap hall bedroom, and two art lessons a week from Professor Angeline.” (O.Henry).

• She opened her door and her heart to the orphan."

• "He fished for compliments and for trout."

• She dug for gold and for praise.

• "He lost his coat and his temper."

• "You held your breath and the door for me."

• "She exhausted both her audience and her repertoire."

• "She looked at the object with suspicion and a magnifying glass."

• "It was curtains for him and the window."

• "His boat and his dreams sank."

When the number of homogeneous members increases but they are semantically disconnected we deal with semantically false chains. This is a variation of zeugma. As a rule, it is the last member of the chain that falls out of the thematic group. Doing so it produces humorous effect: “A Governess wanted. Must possess knowledge of Rumanian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, Music and Mining Engineering.”

In the cases of classical zeugma, the ties between the verb and each of the dependent members are of different intensity and stability. In most cases, one of them together with the verb forms a phraseological unit or a cliché. However, the verb loses some of its semantic independence: “The boys took their places and their books.” Zeugma restores the literal original meaning of the word. This also occurs in violation of phraseological units of different syntactical patterns:

“Little Jon was born with a silver spoon in his mouth which was rather curly and large.” (Galsworthy).

I wanted to give her not a piece but the whole of my mind. (S.Maugham)

The clocks of Silverhill ticked away minute by slow minute. (P. Whitney).

Punning can be realized on most levels of language hierarchy. Non-sequence rests on the extension of syntactical valency. It results in joining two semantically disconnected clauses into one sentence:

“Emperor Nero played the fiddle so they burnt Rome.” Cause / effect relations link two disconnected statements together.

In a museum in Havana there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus, “one when he was a boy and one when he was a man.” —Mark Twain

Various transformations of the logical meaning of words participate in the creation of metaphors, metonymies, zeugma, etc. Each stylistic device adds expressiveness and originality to the nomination of the object. Evaluation of the named concept may be present, but it is an optional characteristic.

In irony, subjectivity lies in the evaluation of the phenomenon, which is named. Irony is a figure of speech that expresses an attitude or a situation in which words or actions mean the opposite to their customary acceptance for purpose of ridicule:

"But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable" ~ Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. These lines convey verbal irony as band of robbers are in general, not respectable! So, it is ironic that Huck has to return to the widow to join the group.

In the Classic contemporary political documentary, Animal Farm, George Orwell has sculpted perfect ironies. A line in the book says, "No animal may drink alcohol" that soon changes to "No animal may drink alcohol to excess". Another good example in the book is when pigs begin to walk and drink, both of which they had promised never to do in their lives.

In Charles Dicken's classic book, The Tale of Two Cities, verbal irony has been reflected many times. For instance, in one line when the road mender says that it is his honor to be passed on the road by Marquis, it is a superb example of verbal irony as the mender says that only because he is expected to say so.

“It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar Elysium where it was all play and no work.” (Ch. Dickens. “Oliver Twist”).

A person going to the gym to climb a stair master takes the elevator to the gym instead of the stairs?

I wear a watch that doesn't tell time (I do it because I have a passion 4 fashion.)...

I'm only happy when I'm sad.

A musician makes fun of other people's music even though his music is also bad.

“She turned with the sweet smile of an alligator.”

The essence of this stylistic device consists of the foregrounding not of the logical but of the evaluative meaning. Irony is a stylistic device in which the contextual evaluative meaning of a word is directly opposite to its dictionary meaning. Irony does not exist outside the context. Verbal irony is the contextual meaning, which diametrically opposes its dictionary meaning.

Sometimes the effect of irony is created by a number of statements, by the whole of the text - sustained irony. It is formed by the contradiction of the speaker’s (writer’s) consideration and the generally accepted moral and ethical codes.

Antonomasia is a lexical SD in which a proper name is used instead of a common noun or vice versa. The case of antonomasia of the first type is when the nominal meaning of a proper name is suppressed by its logical meaning, or the logical meaning acquires the new nominal component. It substitutes an epithet, or descriptive phrase, or official title for a proper name: “He is the Napoleon of crime.” (C. Doyle). It is close to metonymy.

Sometimes a proper name is used to express a general idea: “He took little satisfaction of telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something…”

The second type of antonomasia is when a common noun serves as an individual name: “There are three doctors in an illness like yours. I do not mean only myself, my partner and the radiologist, who does x-rays, the three I am referring to are Dr.Rest, Dr.Diet and Dr.Fresh Air.” (D. Cusack).

The third type of antonomasia is presented by the so-called “speaking names”. Their origin from common nouns is obvious: “Mr. Smith”, “Mr. Brown”, “Lady Teazle”, “Mr. Surface” (Sheridan”The School of Scandal”). The double role of the “speaking names is to name and to qualify. Sometimes it is preserved in translation: Miss Languish -Мисс Томней ; Mr. Backbite - Мистер Клеветаун; Mr. Credulous - Мистер Доверч; Mr. Snake -Мистер Гад (Sheridan. “The Rivals”).

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

Some more examples:

Excuse me Tarzan, could you please come down from that tree.

"When I eventually met Mr. Right I had no idea that his first name was Always." - by Rita Rudner

The answer for this question can be given only by Mr. Know-it-all.

He proved a Judas to the cause.

Harry is the Casanova of my life.

Do not act like Mr. Bean.

There is much of Cicero in this letter.

Cambridge is England's Silicon Valley.