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."
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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.
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check it out.
In case anybody is struggling to pronounce this.
I think that pronunciation has a few too many syllables. Lol. SiNEKduhkey. Not sinokideecodechodee or whatever that was.
Metonym?
Yes! Thanks.
Maybe