the choice of car vs the choice of a car

[Alexey86]

It makes sense to me to think of it as metonymy.

Why did you use metonymy uncountably? I thought of your example as an instance of metonymy.

To do this, I don't need to use the before colour. I only need to use a zero article before car.

Can you think of any example of the colour of car as the subject of a sentence? I mean something like The colour of car is/should/requires...

 

[jutfrank]

Why did you use metonymy uncountably? I thought of your example as an instance of metonymy.

The word metonymy is almost always used uncountably, so it was natural for me to do so. Also, remember that countable instances of things are still examples of uncountable things. A poem is (an instance of) poetry.

Can you think of any example of the colour of car as the subject of a sentence? I mean something like The colour of car is/should/requires...

Why? What will that tell you?

The colour of car is an important consideration for a first-time buyer.

 

[Alexey86]

The word metonymy is almost always used uncountably, so it was natural for me to do so. Also, remember that countable instances of things are still examples of uncountable things. A poem is (an instance of) poetry.

I thought it's better to rely on the context than statistics. Wine can also be countable in the right context, can't it?

It's easy to find a number of examples of a metonymy:



Do these seem unnatural to you?

Why? What will that tell you?

It gives me a better understanding of the pattern.

 

[jutfrank]

I didn't mean to suggest that using metonymy countably was unnatural. I just meant that it was the uncountable use that naturally came to mind when I was expressing my thought. I didn't think about it consciously. I don't have any problem with those examples.

 

[Alexey86]

I didn't think about it consciously.

I hope it's not very annoying that my questions force you to think consciously. It never stops surprising me that reference and countability, being the most challenging and interesting aspects of English to me, are of so little interest to native speakers, compared to tenses for example.