Synecdoche, Cambridge

by Hugo Gye

This article is 16 years old

Wednesday November 18 2009, 2:23pm

Confirmation of Cambridge’s international renown came from an unlikely source recently: American rapper Lil Wayne has name-checked the University on his latest mixtape. ‘Ice Cream Paint Job’, the second track from the mixtape No Ceilings, features the line “She give me good brain like she studied at Cambridge.” This witticism from the popular rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Carter, is believed to be an obscene form of synecdoche, the rhetorical technique whereby a part of something is used to stand for the whole.

Hear the track on YouTube.

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