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This is a decent example A lot of people are pointing to vague categories rather than well-defined things that stand in for non-existent categories
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Replying to @vgr
The English Constitution would seem to be one of the ur-examples of this. Insofar as the thing does legally exist, but what it represents is an abstracted conception of common law with no coherent identity or definitive “completeness” in itself.
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Feels like I’m not getting the question across clearly. For example “DC” is a true metonymy for “US federal government” which is a fuzzy but real thing. “Area 52” might be a good example… metonymy for a vast alien research military industrial complex that doesn’t actually exist
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Lot of examples in racism and anti-semitism. For example, people refer to the influence of George Soros or The Rothschilds as a way of avoiding overtly referring to Jews as a group which would make their prejudice obvious.
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