1134. This week, we look at the poetic power of personification (the language quirk that gives human traits to nonhuman things) and why style guides advise against using it for AI. Then, we look at the different names for common sayings, defining a proverb and breaking down the four main types: maxim, adage, dictum, and truism.
1134. This week, we look at the poetic power of personification (the language quirk that gives human traits to nonhuman things) and why style guides advise against using it for AI. Then, we look at the different names for common sayings, defining a proverb and breaking down the four main types: maxim, adage, dictum, and truism.
The personification segment was written by Karen Lunde, a longtime writer and editor turned web designer and marketing mentor. Solo service business owners come to her for websites where beautiful design meets authentic words that actually build connections. Find her at chanterellemarketingstudio.com.
The proverbs segment was written by Jim Norrena, MFA, who has been writing, editing, and leading grammar and proofreading workshops for more than thirty-five years. He founded TypoSuction.com, an independent editorial service, and is a member of Bay Area Editors’ Forum. He also serves on the board of Professional Publishers Network. You can find him at LinkedIn.
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. Today, we're going to look at personification and then at the differences between things like axioms and maxims.
by Karen Lunde
A few years back, Apple's Siri voice chatbot had a popular little Easter egg. If you asked Siri to divide zero by zero, Siri famously said:
"Imagine that you have zero cookies and you split them evenly among zero friends. How many cookies does each person get? See? It doesn't make sense. And Cookie Monster is sad that there are no cookies, and you are sad that you have no friends."
That bit of playfulness prompted people to say things like, "Dang! She's a total savage today!" Siri was a snarky "she," and not just a voice assistant.
That's a language quirk called "personification." It refers to giving human traits — like moods, emotions, or intentions — to something nonhuman. It's one of the oldest and most instinctive tricks in the storytelling playbook, and it's why we have phrases like "the wind howled," "the camera loves her," and "my GPS betrayed me."
So what is personification, really? Well, it's a kind of metaphor. When we say "time marches on," we're not describing time marching down a trail with literal legs — it's just our way of making an abstract idea more vivid and relatable. In fact, the word "personification" comes from the Latin "persona," meaning "mask," and "facere," meaning "to make." So "personification" literally means "to make into a person."
We do it because it helps us understand the world. Abstract ideas and inanimate objects don't have emotions, but we do, and personification lets us connect our inner experience to the outer world.
Even Old English poets loved personification. In Beowulf, the ocean "welcomes" the hero's ship, and the dawn "steals" over the waves. In Anglo-Saxon riddles, everyday objects like books, onions, and shields speak in the first person, describing their own lives and struggles. Here's an example:
"I am a lonely warrior, wounded by iron, scarred by sword, weary of battle."
The "speaker" is a shield, lamenting its lot in life. It's tough, battered, and strangely noble — classic personification, complete with emotion and perspective. It's proof that personification has been part of English storytelling since before English was even called English.
This isn't just an English-language thing, either. Almost every culture personifies the world. In ancient Greece, natural forces were literally personified as gods — Helios the sun, Gaia the earth, Nike the winged goddess of victory. In Japan's Shinto tradition, nearly everything in nature — rocks, rivers, and trees — can have a kami, a sacred spirit. In Hinduism, rivers like the Ganges are personified as goddesses, flowing embodiments of life and purity.
Some languages even build personification (or at least gender) right into their grammar. In French, "la lune" (the moon) is feminine, while in German, der Mond (the moon) is masculine. Linguists have found that speakers of gendered languages often unconsciously assign gendered traits to objects. French speakers might describe the moon as graceful, while German speakers might describe it as strong. English, interestingly, is the odd one out. Our language dropped grammatical gender centuries ago, yet we still personify like champs.
We attribute human minds to nonhuman things as a way of making sense of them. Psychologists call this tendency "anthropomorphism." Studies show we're especially likely to personify objects that move unpredictably, react to us, or speak with voices. It's the same impulse that leads children to give their toys personalities and adults to say "please" and "thank you" to their AI chatbots.
And companies definitely tap into our personifying impulse. Even the names they choose for virtual assistants play into our human urge to make the things we interact with more like us: Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Claude. No one wants to say, "Hey, Algorithm 4529, what's the weather like in Tulsa today?"
But here's the catch: while personification can be fun and poetic, in journalism or business writing, it can hide responsibility.
In fiction or poetry, personification makes imagery come alive. Emily Dickinson wrote, "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me." Used well, personification can turn prose into something artful.
But in a press release? Companies don't actually decide things — people inside them do. So, saying "the company decided" can obscure who's actually calling the shots. And in a news article, it can muddle meaning. If you write "Science says we're doomed," who's really speaking? Scientists? Research data? Sometimes personification makes ideas accessible, but other times it lets writers get away with being imprecise.
That's why style guides like the Associated Press Stylebook take it seriously. In 2023, the AP added guidance advising journalists to avoid language that gives human characteristics to AI systems and to steer clear of gendered pronouns for artificial intelligence. So rather than writing "ChatGPT thinks…" or "Alexa said she didn't understand," they recommend keeping it neutral: "ChatGPT responded…" or "Alexa replied."
It may sound nitpicky, but it matters. Using "she" or "he" for a chatbot gives readers the impression of sentience or intention, and that can mislead audiences about what AI actually is … and isn't.
It's hard to resist the age-old drive to bring the world to life with language. We give storms tempers, AI assistants moods, and even cars names and personalities. Whether we're talking to Siri, writing poetry, or scolding a stubborn printer, personification reminds us that language is alive, too. It walks, talks, and occasionally — like Siri — throws shade about nonexistent cookies and friends.
And don't worry, by the way — Apple has long since updated Siri's response to be a lot more factual and a lot less mean.
That segment was written by Karen Lunde, a longtime writer and editor turned web designer and marketing mentor. Solo service business owners come to her for websites where beautiful design meets authentic words that actually build connections. Find her at chanterellemarketingstudio.com.
By Jim Norrena
Common sayings, like “the early bird gets the worm,” “don’t judge a book by its cover,” and “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” can be clever ways to express a particular truth. When used sparingly and strategically, they can pepper your language with insight and accuracy, but be wary because they are also often clichés — phrases that have become overused and can make your writing sound trite.
But have you ever wondered about the other names for these kinds of sayings? It turns out, they can also be categorized by type. For example, often these familiar expressions are proverbs. Dictionary.com defines a proverb as “a short popular saying, usually of unknown and ancient origin [that has stood the test of time], and that expresses effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought.”
We can break these sayings down further into more specific categories, a few of which are maxims, adages, dictums, and truisms. But the categories can also be fuzzy. Many are also considered to be proverbs and they can also be synonymous or nearly synonymous with each other.
Keeping that in mind, let’s begin with the proverb “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” It’s a well-known saying often credited to Benjamin Franklin, who popularized the saying in his Poor Richard’s Almanack in the 1730s. (Interestingly, the expression existed in slightly different versions in English going back to the mid-1400s, and even earlier in Latin.) (1)
Next, what about “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”?
This proverb is also a metaphor, a figure of speech that uses words or phrases that don't mean what they literally mean. For example, this metaphor uses the apple as a stand-in for a child and the tree as a stand-in for parents and means children tend to take after their parents. (What we use today is actually a version of the older German proverb “as men say, the apple never falls far from the stem.”) Our version became popular in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, thanks to philosophical essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. (2)
Next, “the early bird gets the worm” is a proverb and a metaphorical way of saying successful people get up early, but it’s also a maxim, which is a general truth, fundamental principle, or rule of conduct. Maxims are often characterized as straightforward and offer guidance for a better life.
The saying is a maxim because it has withstood the test of time and prescribes a suggested way of living.
Other maxims are “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “actions speak louder than words.” These both reflect a universal truth that prescribes a particular way of living, presumably to our advantage. It can help to think of maxims as typically having a philosophical or moral emphasis. They tell us how to behave.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a true maxim because it advises us not to judge others by their appearance.
Next are adages. Adages are similar to maxims. Both are often metaphorical, and both are rooted in universal truth. But adages are primarily distinguished by their age and traditional quality. In fact, many people consider the phrase “an old adage” to be redundant since adages are, by definition, traditional sayings. (Maxims, by comparison, are not necessarily old, long-held sayings.)
“Birds of a feather flock together” is an adage, for example. It has existed over time and expresses a general truth. Unlike a maxim, which recommends some kind of conduct, this saying doesn't encourage a particular behavior.
Here’s a little mnemonic to help you remember the key difference between adages and maxims: Adage begins with an “a,” which can stand for age.
Next, we have dictums, which are statements backed up with some kind of authority, and they fall into two categories: the first is a general observation, and second is a legal term.
The Latin dictum is a derivative of dīcere, meaning “speak, tell, or say.” The Oxford English Dictionary says the first known appearance of “dictum” is in the works of John Stewart, a writer and courtier at the Scottish Court during the reign of King James VI in the sixteenth century.
A dictum is relatively easy to identify because its primary characteristic is an attribution to a specific person or source. (3) “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country” is an easily recognizable dictum. (President John F. Kennedy used it in his inaugural address in January 1961.)
In keeping with the definition of a proverb, Kennedy’s saying is well-known and culturally rooted. But because we can trace the source to an authority, dictum is the better name for it.
Other familiar dictums include “I think, therefore I am” by René Descartes and “To err is human; to forgive, divine” by Alexander Pope.
In the legal world, a dictum is also something someone said, but in this case, it’s a specific type of statement from a judge.
Our final type of proverb is a truism. These are statements that don’t really tell you anything new — the truth of them is already built into what they say — and they usually don’t hit very hard precisely because they're so obviously true.
Common truisms include “practice makes perfect,” “money can’t buy happiness,” and “it is what it is” (which is also a tautology: a statement that repeats the same idea in different words or says something that is necessarily true by its own definition).
You should definitely avoid using too many truisms, or you’ll end up sounding like a cheap motivational poster.
Now that we’ve identified the main kinds of proverbs — maxims, adages, dictums, and truisms — let’s quickly recap:
There’s also a lot of overlap between these terms, so a saying can fall into more than one category, but now you’ll be better able to identify different sayings, and this new knowledge may even help you with crossword puzzles.
Learning new words can sometimes feel like an uphill climb, but… you guessed it: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
That segment was written by Jim Norrena, MFA, who has been writing, editing, and leading grammar and proofreading workshops for more than thirty-five years. He founded TypoSuction.com, an independent editorial service, and is a member of Bay Area Editors’ Forum. He also serves on the board of Professional Publishers Network. You can find him at LinkedIn.
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Finally, I have a familect story about being "expensitive."
"Hi, my name is [unintelligible] and I'm the mother of a child, nine years old. My familect I wanted to share with you guys is the reason I am calling is when my little one was only four years old, I explained to him — he's a boy, he's been very rambunctious from the early age — and I was trying to explain how mommy's body is very sensitive, and mommy's very sensitive. And I will repeat over and over since he was three and he was four, but he still didn't get it. Until one day, he hit me, and he said, "I'm sorry mommy, I know you're very expensitive." After that, that is actually something that we use when somebody is sensitive or when something is sensitive. We say, "Oh that's very expensive," or "She is very expensitive." That's our familect, I hope you like it. His name is Marshall, and he's now nine years old, and five years later was still use the familect."
Thank you so much! That's a fun one.
If you want to share the story of your familect, a special word or phrase you use with your family, or a friendilect, leave a message on the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL or leave a voice message on WhatsApp.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Morgan Christianson in advertising; Holly Hutchings, director of podcasts; Nat Hoopes and Rebekah Sebastian in marketing; and Dan Feierabend in audio, who pays extra for the "Black Card" at his gym, but only uses the elliptical machine.
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl and author of "The Grammar Daily," a book of daily tips, illustrations, and puzzles. Buy a few copies today for all the language lovers in your life, and cross them off your gift list. That's all. Thanks for listening.