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> Sure, though the article literally says that Jobs "called up Amazon", not Bezos. Just metonymy --- when we use an inanimate thing to stand in place of a pers

> Sure, though the article literally says that Jobs "called up Amazon", not Bezos. Just metonymy --- when we use an inanimate thing to stand in place of a person (like "North Korea agreed to a cease-fire", which is metonymy because the abstract concept of a country doesn't "agree to" anything). > what I was trying to say was that the private/direct phone number of Jeff Bezos is unlikely to have been on a public directory Doesn't need to be public. These high-level people (CEOs, famous musicians, etc.) have easy ways to contact one another. They might have only met once and exchanged numbers "just in case", or maybe the story was a shorthand way of saying "Steve had his secretary call Bezos's secretary right then" (which is entirely possible to do spur-of-the-moment if Apple had ever had contact with Amazon at all). I think the spirit of the story --- that the call took a very short time, maybe a couple minutes --- is totally reasonable. Tim Cook told a story once that he was unsure what to do at some point with regard to shareholders or something, so he called up Warren Buffett. Apparently they had exchanged numbers once in the past when they had been at some event together or something like that. It was a spur-of-the-moment call without any phone tag, at least as Cook tells the story.

jaclaz 8y ago
>Just metonymy --- I know, but you cannot use it "asymmetrically" in a case such as this. Apple may metonymically call Amazon, but if the call (and the deal) is initiated by Steve Jobs, the call (and deal) is received by Jeff Bezos or by one of his top executives. BTW there is an evident need for symmetry also for the "merit" of the fast decision/acceptance by the receiving party, you cannot incense the one making the fast, direct and serendipitous proposal and then hide the one (person) on the other side that so quickly accepted it (for 1M $) under the metonymy. >Tim Cook told a story once that he was unsure what to do at some point with regard to shareholders or something, so he called up Warren Buffett. Yep, he didn't call up Berkshire Hathaway.
- DonaldPShimoda 8y ago
  > but you cannot use it "asimmetrically" in a case such as this. You absolutely can. Setting: a restaurant. Steve is another employee. "Hey, did Steve take the bill to the ham sandwich?" This is 100% acceptable. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it's unacceptable. For more on metonymy and examples of it, check out the book "Metaphors We Live By". There are a few chapters devoted to real-world uses of metonymy, and this is absolutely common among native English speakers. Also, do you have something against using the letter y for the "kit" vowel? I've never seen spellings like "simmetry" or "metonimy" before in any dialect. (Honest question.) > Yep, he didn't call up Berkshire Hathaway. Is it so unbelievable that wealthy people might have met once and exchange phone numbers? What use would Berkshire Hathaway be for him? He wanted advice from Buffett directly, not some other person, nor the company as an entity. Also, your argument doesn't make any sense anymore. Why is it that you feel Tim Cook has to call Berkshire Hathaway (company) and not Warren Buffet (person), but you think that Steve Jobs called Jeff Bezos (person) and not Amazon (company)?
  - jaclaz 8y ago
    >Also, do you have something against using the letter y for the "kit" vowel? I've never seen spellings like "simmetry" or "metonimy" before in any dialect. (Honest question.) Only typos, sorry, corrected. >Is it so unbelievable that wealthy people might have met once and exchange phone numbers? What use would Berkshire Hathaway be for him? He wanted advice from Buffett directly, not some other person, nor the company as an entity. Not at all unbelievable, actually very probable, I was only pointing out how you didn't use the metonymy in your Tim Cook example.
    - DonaldPShimoda 8y ago
      > Only typos, sorry, corrected. Oh, my mistake! I thought maybe it was like how British people spell things differently from Americans, and maybe this was another thing along those lines. Apologies. > I was only pointing out how you didn't use the metonymy in your Tim Cook example. Oh I totally misread that. Apologies again. Metonymy is not compulsory in any case, but it does serves a specific purpose when it's used. Metonymy is used to draw attention to a person's (or maybe group of people's) identity through an inanimate object. You might talk about the "first violin" in an orchestral setting, but "Jane" (the violinist) when talking about her dreams and aspirations in school. It's just used depending on context and desired mental imagery. In the Steve Jobs case, it was Amazon that held the one-click purchase patent, so it makes sense that he would call Amazon. Additionally, it may not even have been Bezos he needed to talk to. Maybe it was some other executive or something. The fact that it might have been Bezos is not the important thing, so metonymy is used to say "Steve wanted to acquire this specific thing from Another Company". In contrast, Tim Cook called Warren Buffett specifically because of his skills as an individual. Calling Berkshire Hathaway wouldn't have made sense because the company doesn't have that knowledge. If Cook had wanted to hire consultation, then he might have called Berkshire Hathaway, but as it was he was talking to a specific individual for personal financial advice.
      - jaclaz 8y ago
        Well, you were close enough, in Italian (my mother language) metonymy is "metonimia" and symmetry is "simmetria", it is not uncommon when I write in English that I wrongly use the italian spelling for words that are very similar. Anyway, back to the Steve Jobs case, remember that he wanted not only to talk to the entity that held the patent, he also wanted to make a 1 million $ proposal for acquiring the license and wanted an immediate reply, so he needed to talk to someone with enough power to accept the proposal and to accept it immediately, so that would be very specifically be either Jeff Bezos or a top Amazon executive with those powers (and the guts to close such a deal directly on the phone without telling the boss), there is no contrast with Tim Cook wanting to talk specifically with Warren Buffet.

jaclaz 8y ago

>Just metonymy --- I know, but you cannot use it "asymmetrically" in a case such as this. Apple may metonymically call Amazon, but if the call (and the deal) is initiated by Steve Jobs, the call (and deal) is received by Jeff Bezos or by one of his top executives. BTW there is an evident need for symmetry also for the "merit" of the fast decision/acceptance by the receiving party, you cannot incense the one making the fast, direct and serendipitous proposal and then hide the one (person) on the other side that so quickly accepted it (for 1M $) under the metonymy. >Tim Cook told a story once that he was unsure what to do at some point with regard to shareholders or something, so he called up Warren Buffett. Yep, he didn't call up Berkshire Hathaway.

DonaldPShimoda 8y ago
> but you cannot use it "asimmetrically" in a case such as this. You absolutely can. Setting: a restaurant. Steve is another employee. "Hey, did Steve take the bill to the ham sandwich?" This is 100% acceptable. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it's unacceptable. For more on metonymy and examples of it, check out the book "Metaphors We Live By". There are a few chapters devoted to real-world uses of metonymy, and this is absolutely common among native English speakers. Also, do you have something against using the letter y for the "kit" vowel? I've never seen spellings like "simmetry" or "metonimy" before in any dialect. (Honest question.) > Yep, he didn't call up Berkshire Hathaway. Is it so unbelievable that wealthy people might have met once and exchange phone numbers? What use would Berkshire Hathaway be for him? He wanted advice from Buffett directly, not some other person, nor the company as an entity. Also, your argument doesn't make any sense anymore. Why is it that you feel Tim Cook has to call Berkshire Hathaway (company) and not Warren Buffet (person), but you think that Steve Jobs called Jeff Bezos (person) and not Amazon (company)?
- jaclaz 8y ago
  >Also, do you have something against using the letter y for the "kit" vowel? I've never seen spellings like "simmetry" or "metonimy" before in any dialect. (Honest question.) Only typos, sorry, corrected. >Is it so unbelievable that wealthy people might have met once and exchange phone numbers? What use would Berkshire Hathaway be for him? He wanted advice from Buffett directly, not some other person, nor the company as an entity. Not at all unbelievable, actually very probable, I was only pointing out how you didn't use the metonymy in your Tim Cook example.
  - DonaldPShimoda 8y ago
    > Only typos, sorry, corrected. Oh, my mistake! I thought maybe it was like how British people spell things differently from Americans, and maybe this was another thing along those lines. Apologies. > I was only pointing out how you didn't use the metonymy in your Tim Cook example. Oh I totally misread that. Apologies again. Metonymy is not compulsory in any case, but it does serves a specific purpose when it's used. Metonymy is used to draw attention to a person's (or maybe group of people's) identity through an inanimate object. You might talk about the "first violin" in an orchestral setting, but "Jane" (the violinist) when talking about her dreams and aspirations in school. It's just used depending on context and desired mental imagery. In the Steve Jobs case, it was Amazon that held the one-click purchase patent, so it makes sense that he would call Amazon. Additionally, it may not even have been Bezos he needed to talk to. Maybe it was some other executive or something. The fact that it might have been Bezos is not the important thing, so metonymy is used to say "Steve wanted to acquire this specific thing from Another Company". In contrast, Tim Cook called Warren Buffett specifically because of his skills as an individual. Calling Berkshire Hathaway wouldn't have made sense because the company doesn't have that knowledge. If Cook had wanted to hire consultation, then he might have called Berkshire Hathaway, but as it was he was talking to a specific individual for personal financial advice.
    - jaclaz 8y ago
      Well, you were close enough, in Italian (my mother language) metonymy is "metonimia" and symmetry is "simmetria", it is not uncommon when I write in English that I wrongly use the italian spelling for words that are very similar. Anyway, back to the Steve Jobs case, remember that he wanted not only to talk to the entity that held the patent, he also wanted to make a 1 million $ proposal for acquiring the license and wanted an immediate reply, so he needed to talk to someone with enough power to accept the proposal and to accept it immediately, so that would be very specifically be either Jeff Bezos or a top Amazon executive with those powers (and the guts to close such a deal directly on the phone without telling the boss), there is no contrast with Tim Cook wanting to talk specifically with Warren Buffet.