What is the term for an abstract personification? (Examples below)
What is the term for an abstract personification? (Examples below)
Something like "the Firm wants to hire you," "London doesn't like you," or "the Company has noticed your achievements."
The term is metonym. It is when you use a characteristic or associated attribute of a thing as the name of that thing. A classic example would be "the crown" when talking about the monarch or "The Whitehouse" when talking about the president.
Oh, this is a great word. Thanks! I just went down a huge rabbit hole of synecdoche vs metonym, and I doubt I'll forget either term soon.
Isn’t this anthropomorphization?
Synecdoche
Oo, I got a bonus word! I spent way too much time trying to parse synecdoche from metonym.
Apparently, synecdoche is something associated with, and metonym is a whole or a part of of. So "red hats" and "trust funds" referring to people are synecdoche and my examples were all metonyms.
I'm geeking out a bit now.
A book you'd probably enjoy is "Elements of Eloquence", by Mark Forsythe. It covers this kind of stuff in a fun, accessible format. Like how John F Kennedy's "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate" is an example of chiasmus, the symmetrical repetition of structure or wording; or how the Fight Club rules thing is an example of epizeuxis.
The audiobook version is pretty fun to listen to, that's how I first encountered the book - a friend who needs something to listen to as they sleep put it on and I enjoyed it.
I think that pronunciation has a few too many syllables. Lol. SiNEKduhkey. Not sinokideecodechodee or whatever that was.
Metonym?
Yes! Thanks.
Maybe
Apostrophe