Disney’s Cars - Personification

I want you to pick up a newspaper.  It could be paper or online; Drudge Report may actually be the best as it’s a collection of headlines, and that’s what we are going to look at first.Looking at the current issue of Drudge Report, I see the following headlines:

  • Kid’s BBC Site Offers Curious 9/11 Explanation
  • Iran Steps Up Crackdown Against ‘Immoral Activity’
  • Ang Lee Bows To China and Self-censors Award Winning Film

What do these three headlines have in common?  I could have actually picked a lot more than just these three.  So what is it I’m asking you to look at?

Personification!

Each of those three headlines uses personification.  Can a web site offer an explanation?  Can Iran take a step?  Can someone bow to China?  Of course not.  All of those are either an object or a country, and no object can explain anything to you, and you can’t bow to a physical entity that is composed of millions of square kilometers.  Yet, it seems counter-intuitive to even say this.  Of course a web site can offer an explanation, we think.  And of course Iran can take steps and someone can bow to China. Trying to think otherwise is unnatural.

That’s because personification is natural to us.  We use it all the time, either to describe a car, a house, a planet, or your favorite sock.  In the news, you’ll see personification used all the time.  “Microsoft Engaged In Anti-Trust Battle With Europe,” or “England Sues United States For Language Infringement.”  Technically speaking, neither of those headlines make much sense.  But they make sense because personification is second nature to us.  We give inanimate objects and entities human characteristics all the time.  

In fact, I guarantee you that you give your computer human characteristics pretty much every single day.  Just yesterday, I felt like throwing my laptop across the room for being stupid.  I also swore at the time that the next computer I bought would be a Mac.

So to finish off with personification, a short definition is in order: Personification is a term used when giving an inanimate object or an inanimate entity (such as a country or company) human characteristics.