Personality vs person

On Mon, 3 Jun 2024 12:39:35 +0300, Anton Shepelev
<anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> wrote:

Steve Hayes:
>

"A personality veneration"?

>
Why `personality' instead of `(a) person'?

Interesting question.

For "personality" my Concise Oxford Dictionary gives simply "personal
estate", which puts it alongside "temporality" and "spirituality".

In the days of Christendom, prince bishops, when they took office,
were invested with the temporalities and spiritualities of their
office. Presumably whatever they owned part from those was their
personality.

An example of that that I am aware of was the Bishop of Durham, who
was also the Count Palatine. In response to the Reform Act in the
1830s he donated his temporalities to the foundation of the University
of Durham, and Durham Casle, which had been the bishop's residence,
became University College. The bishop took himself and his
spiritualities off to Auckland, which thereafter became known as
Bishop Auckland. Preumably he disposed of his personalities by will
before he died.

But having said all that, I went to look up "personage" and saw that I
had misread it -- trying to read a dictionary while still wearing my
computer glasses -- all the above applies to personalty, not
personality.

Of personality it says:

"being a person; personal existence or identity"

But it only gives it as a noun, not an adjective.

So why is it a personality cult (adulation, veneration, dedicated
following etc) rather than a personal cult?



--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk