Grant and Martha were rather critical of the self appointed Rules Masters who don't like foods to be adored, political causes to be campaigned on, etc. (That's on show of May 20.)
But aren't there virtues to the instinct to spot conflations and to insist on distinctions? -if not because it is a main drive of language itself, then as inward check on our weird and perhaps dark human psyches.
Here're but a few well worn confused terminologies that no doubt trace to human vagaries, self-centerness, drama-queenness, infantileness:
Battle cancer
Tame Nature
Assault on Mount Everest
Mount Everest yields but not before claiming so many lives (This one is particularly annoying!)
What about Adore foods ? Could it be from the same psychic place where you conflate Loving a person with Eating them alive? (There should be no doubt that human love has a dark side that we humans have in common with spiders, mantises, and such. )
I always love it when a restaurant waitress calls me sweetie-pie, but deep down it always gets my guards up. As it should yours too.
RobertB said: Here’re but a few well worn confused terminologies that no doubt trace to human vagaries, self-centerness, drama-queenness, infantileness:
Well that's an interesting (but useful) contraction I haven't seen much of (here're). Works for me as "here are."
But yes, I do not like this recent tendency to anthropomorphize natural objects. It's colorful, to be sure, but I think it diminishes the meaning of strong verbs like "battle" "tame" "assault" "yields" etc. Probably OK for fiction, but I don't think it has a place in "serious" writing. Just my 2¢.