e as much better than general terms as their suggestion
exceeds the suggestion of general terms.

Synecdoche, Metonymy.

Much of the force of figures of speech is derived from the suggestive
quality of the specific words employed. When a man calls another a
dog, he has used a metaphor. He has availed himself of a term that
gathers up all the snarling qualities of the worst of the dog species.
The figure has high suggestive power. Synecdoche, too, that figure of
speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part,
employs a term of higher suggestive power for one of lower connoting
force. "All hands took hold" is better than "All persons went to
work." Metonymy is the substitution of the name of one thing for that
of another to which the former bears a known and close relation. The
most common of these known and close relations are those of cause and
its effects, of container and the thing contained, and of sign and the
thing signified. "He has read Shakespeare," "He was addicted to the
use of the bottle," "All patriots fight for the flag," are examples of
metonymy. All these figures depend in large degree for their power
upon the greater suggestiveness of specific words; and their use gives
to composition an efficiency and directness commensurate with the
greater connoting value of the specific words.

Care in Choice of Specific Words.

A writer should keep in mind the fact that the same word may mean
widely different things to two persons. For this reason the specific
word that appeals to him most may be of no value in addressing others.
"Free silver" means to one set of men the withdrawal of money from
investment, consequent stagnation in business, followed by the closing
of factories and penury among laborers. To others it means three
dollars a day for unskilled labor, fire, clothes, and something to
eat. Again, if one wished to present the horrors of devastating
disease, in the South he would mention yellow fever, in the North
smallpox; but to a lady who saw six little brothers and sisters dead
from it in one week, three carried to the graveyard on the hillside
one chill November morning, all the terrors of contagious disease are
suggested by the word "diphtheria." Words are weighted with our
experiences. They are laden with what we have lived into them. As
persons have different experiences, each word carries to each person a
different meaning. The wise writer chooses those specific words w