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Technically, Big Ben is the bell, not the clock, from the article as well: > A common misconception is referring to the entire tower as Big Ben, when in fact,
by sigio 11mo ago
Technically, Big Ben is the bell, not the clock, from the article as well:
> A common misconception is referring to the entire tower as Big Ben, when in fact, that's just the name of the bell. Andrew clarified: "So it's The Great Clock inside the Elizabeth Tower that rings Big Ben."
- embedding-shape 11mo ago> Technically, Big Ben is the bell, not the clock, from the article as well: Technically I guess yeah. The tower that used to be called the "Clock Tower", is now called "Elizabeth Tower" yet it's also true that the de facto nickname for the entire tower is "Big Ben", even though technically that is the name of the bell, not the tower itself.
- Lio 11mo agoI'm not sure why you're being downvoted, this is completely true. Big Ben is the bell not the clock.
- ivanbakel 11mo agoProbably because it’s unclear what this pedantry about synecdoche contributes to the discussion. Many people (including journalists at the state broadcaster) happily refer to the whole tower as Big Ben, so that is functionally one of its names. Is the fact that the name originates from a bell, and that the official name for the tower is different, interesting? Maybe. Is it worth “correcting”? No, for the same reason it’s not worth policing people’s use of “Google” to mean “Alphabet”.
- dylan604 11mo agoWhile I'd typically agree that pedantry is normally rather boring, the pedantry in this case is actually interesting in that the individual properties of the object have their own name and are addressable uniquely. It sounds like they are public as well. I also reject your premise this is anything similar to referring to Google/Alphabet as interchangeable.
- b00ty4breakfast 11mo agopars pro toto, dawg.
- Uehreka 11mo agoBig Ben is actually the name of the scientist, the bell is more frequently referred to as “The Creature”.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- tolerance 11mo agoSo is “Big Ben" some kind of recursive synecdoche?
- clickety_clack 11mo agoAh, you’ve fallen for the “no true Big Ben” fallacy.
- b00ty4breakfast 11mo agoprescriptivists go home