Pint of rye

 

To offer her a drink, I grab a “pint”—a pint-sized bottle, that is—of “rye”—whiskey. Two more instances of metonymy. A measurement (pint) stands in for the thing measured (bottle), and an ingredient (rye) pretends to be the whole thing (whisky). If a drop of confusion remains, think of it this way. One cannot literally drink rye, a grain related to barley and wheat, eaten in unprocessed form by livestock.

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