> He is **the very/** **the splitting**  image of sophistication

 I am wondering whether or not those mean the same thing, if so, are they interchangeable?


 Would you please throw a light on this confusion in a simple way?



 ***UPDATED***:

 h=Having taken into account the following linke, I am wondering which one I should use, and eventually which one of the following bold ones you use?


metaphor: “it’s like he was spat out of his father’s mouth” (1689).

metonymy: “he’s the very spit of his father” (1825) — when the metaphor is commonplace enough, it no longer gets spelled out in full.

idiom/cliché: “the spit and image of his father” (1859) — a particularly effective wording of the metonymy solidifies into a widely re-used phrase.

corruption: “the spitten image” (1878) — the original analysis of the phrase is lost.

reanalysis: “the spitting image” (1901) — this strange new word “spitten” gets replaced by something which is at least syntactically more comprehensible.

further reanalysis/eggcorning: “the splitting image” (1880(!?), 1939) — the phrase changes to something which is more semantically plausible — it’s easier to imagine ways that “splitting image” could have arisen than “spitting image”.
 
**spitting image”**

**splitting image**

 [enter link description here][1]

 Thanks in advance


  [1]: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/8509/is-it-correct-to-say-person-a-is-the-spitting-image-or-the-splitting-image-o