Recently, I learned about the use of metonymy in English news on OpenCourseWare.

Take the following news as an example:

The headline is

“F-f-frigid Temperatures From Windy City to Big Apple in Forecast”

What is “Windy City”？

What is “Big Apple”？

If we don’t know the meaning of them, we can’t understand this news.

We need to have some common sense and understand the culture of the locals. 

In fact, the “windy city” and “big apple” are metonymy.

“windy city”means “Chicago”, because Chicago is windy city of America.

“big apple”means ”New York City”.

By the way, the “F-f-frigid” of headline gives a feeling that someone was very cold to tremble and say.

This description was very vivid.