Sympathy for Book Reviewers: They may know an author has multiple personality, but admire the author and don’t want to imply mental illness

That appeared to be the situation of the reviewers I chided in my last two posts for their circumlocutions about Fernando Pessoa and Shirley Jackson.

Their problem was that they didn’t know how to say “multiple personality” without implying mental illness.

The solution is “multiple personality trait,” because it acknowledges multiple personality, per se, but “trait” (as opposed to “disorder”) does not imply illness.