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English Language & Usage

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    Not the same thing. "Alexander McQueen" is a metonym for Alexander McQueen-branded clothing. On the other hand, the original declaration is not an instance of metonymy; it's nonsense (except in the literal case of a wearable umbrella as pictured above). Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 20:34
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    You can most certainly wear an umbrella, just as you would wear a sword. I've seen plenty of people do so. How absurd to think you can't wear an umbrella. Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 23:34
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    @jcolebrand asked how it sounds to the ears of a Brit. Well, it doesn't make sense. You wear something attached to the body (a sword on a belt, a gun in a holster, a sandwich-board over the shoulders...); you carry something which will get lost if you let go of it. Perhaps American usage is different -- although another comment suggests that saying "wear an umbrella" sounds odd. The point I was making is that some languages do use the same word for both wear and carry -- French, for example, has porter. English has two distinct words for two distinct actions. Commented Jun 14, 2012 at 6:21
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    @AndrewLeach Yeah, that was rather my point. It sounds foreign, but not too foreign, like "this shouldn't make sense to me, but it must make sense to someone". Anyways, I think the phrase is poetic enough to be accurate. (Also: braying of a donkey :p) Commented Jun 14, 2012 at 14:49
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    "English has two distinct words for two distinct actions" -- or more precisely, English has two distinct words for a multitude of distinct actions, that we choose to collect into two groups for ease of reference but that other languages collect in one group, also for ease of reference ;-) Commented Dec 6, 2014 at 16:00