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In reply to:
Its def. of prosopopeia sent me to its listing for personification, and I think this helps clarify pretty well:
A figure of speech ... Also called: prosopopeia
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What's with the 'also called'? Have I lost it completely this Friday afternoon or are the two spellings the same?
Or are we talking about a missing diaresis here (and to heck with the umlauts)?
Perhaps it's just a circular reference. Prosopopeia sends you to personification, which tells that it is also called prosopopeia. Please remember, when evaluating this post, that my status as gibbering loon has been universally accepted here.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Maybe there was an exta O left out and it was supposed to read "Also called: prosopopoeia" (analagous to onomatopoeia??) Who knows?
BTW, I commented on this word down in "Weekly Themes" but I guess that part of the board isn't visited much any more.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Max, you're right about the circumnavigation. That's exactly what happened. But I'll have to lay claim to the gibbering loon (or similar--don't want to intrude on your personal territory!) title for this one. In my other post, Anna, I wrote everything up to the colon. All the rest is a direct copy from gurunet. I think I'll be the gibbering lunatic. 
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newbie
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newbie
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Here's what Anu's wordserver says about personification:
Personification \Per*son`i*fi*ca"tion\, n. [Cf. F. personnification.]
1. The act of personifying; impersonation; embodiment. --C. Knight.
2. (Rhet.) A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstract idea is represented as animated, or endowed with personality; prosopopeia; as, the floods clap their hands.
It stands to me that prosopopeia is just a fancy way of saying 'personification', except for expressing 'speaking as if being an imaginary person' which, I would say, definitely exceeds p..n's definition.
So, a man posting here and claiming to be Albert Gore would (probably, not necessarily) be guilty of a nasty personification, whereas the same man, introducing himself as the 43rd President of the US of A, could only be called a prosopopeia enthusiast!
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Carpal Tunnel
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there are two distinct senses given by most sources for prosopopoeia: (1) a personification or embodiment of a quallity or other abstraction [this is what we usually think of when we think of personification]; and (2) an absent [read dead] or imaginary person is portrayed as speaking or acting -- usually where a plausible but invented speech is put into the mouth of a real character.
It is this second sense which seems to be giving us problems. "I am dying, Egypt," says Antony to Cleopatra in his death scene of their eponymous play -- obviously we have no recording of this ever being said, but the prosopopoeia is dramatically justified! E. L. Doctorow made a writing career of using this device in his fiction.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Far be it from me to YART, but where would "anthropomorphism" fit in, then, now that we have three words to juggle?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Flowers danced about the lawn.
But not Gennifer, or at least not the lawn at the White House.
TEd
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old hand
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old hand
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what's "pertaining to nephews" nepotist springs to my mind. But this is not really neutral  .
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Carpal Tunnel
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>If materternal is "pertaining to aunties"...
shona, just to avert promulgation of the error, the word is 'materteral' (no 'n')... and I don't have an answer for nieces and nephews.
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