The difference between personification and anthropomorphism:
Wow this is a great question. I literally had to read an entire article to figure this out myself. So if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think most English speakers know the difference either!
So, personification is when you represent a human idea or trait to any non-human thing, like a concept or an object. Sometimes when your computer doesn’t work, or you can’t get your cellphone to make a call, you might feel like the computer or the phone is working against you, like it’s TRYING to make things harder for you. Now, of course it’s not; it’s just a computer or a cell phone. But the feeling that something non-human has a human trait, that’s personification. You can also see this in the saying “Love is blind.” Love is an idea, so it has no sight, obviously. But using personification here
gives a nice little nuance that you wouldn’t get if you used a more simple language.
Anthropomorphism is more literal. It’s when something nonhuman is ACTING human. When you see Snoopy walking around and chatting with the other characters in Peanuts, that’s anthropomorphism. If you’ve ever read “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, that’s anthropomorphism.
There’s a lot of nuance here, but I think understanding the difference between these allows you to be more subtle and effective with your language.
Thank you for asking this question, I learned a lot by answering it!!
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