Something that is not alive does not have agency.

Machines, tools, texts, words—none of these things have agency,

• yet is it a common practice for us to write (and speak) as if these non-living things did have agency.

This common practice is evidence of the highly metaphoric nature of our language.

(metaphorically)

Because attibuting agency to non-living things can be misleading,

• it is a convention of this website to highlight that the apparent agency of non-living things is metaphoric, not actual