Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 735 posts

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#191

Post by lal »

fatfingerd wrote: post #178
tysam_and wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this to be a false equivalence. People can horribly misuse the phrase "comprised of". Bland articles that directly communicate the language can be more or less tasteful depending upon who is reading them. Almost assuredly sentences can be written without "comprised of" that are also definitely not bland. But classifying something you find easier to read as better language for everyone doesn't make it immediate…

I can't see how eliminating a common misuse of an otherwise dead word wouldn't be clearer to nonnative speakers and less painful to the brains of native speakers. There are a lot of people who want to add dead vocabulary back to sound important and they'll succeed often enough with words that are at best unnecessary synonyms that convey no additional information. We don't really have to give them the benefit of the d…

This conversation has gone back in a circle though. The original parent comment here pointed out that none of the arguments given for why it's a "misuse" hold water. "I can't see how eliminating a common misuse wouldn't be clearer" is not a responsive reply to "it's not a misuse."

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#192

Post by hhjinks »

ttiurani wrote: post #91
p-e-w wrote: post #10

The justifications given in that essay leave a really bad taste in my mouth: > I believe using "comprised of" is poor writing, because > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. That's true for many, many other words. In fact, most instances of definite and indefinite articles "add nothing to the language", since the actual…

> I'm going to impose my preference on everyone else, even though the term has been part of standard contemporary English for a long time. At least I, as a non-native speaker, find the edited sentences always easier to read. They simply make the text better. As the entire point od Wikipedia is to make knowledge accessible with co-writing, I find it just wild that people would object to better language. So who exactly…

Simplifying the language, so that non-native speakers can understand it, doesn't automatically make the text better. That's a wild assertion. Worse yet, Simple English Wikipedia exists for that exact purpose.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#193

Post by logicchains »

soraminazuki wrote: post #190
p-e-w wrote: post #10

The justifications given in that essay leave a really bad taste in my mouth: > I believe using "comprised of" is poor writing, because > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. That's true for many, many other words. In fact, most instances of definite and indefinite articles "add nothing to the language", since the actual…

> > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. I wonder if the editor read "1984" and straight up copied its ideas. In the novel, the totalitarian state of Oceania uses that exact same justification to promote the use of the Newspeak language: > After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of…

>I wonder if the editor read "1984" and straight up copied its ideas

Maybe George Orwell copied the idea from Esperanto. For instance, "dark" in Esperanto is "notlight", and left is "notright".

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#195

Post by jayknight »

arthurcolle wrote: post #28

A true hero. I respect their efforts and wish them well. Wikipedia moderation/editor gang continues to set new records for anal-retentiveness and obfuscated motivations but as long as I can keep slurping up enwiki-pages-articles dumps, I'll leave them alone and wish them well.

A few years ago I went in a spree of fixing "could of" and "should of", but I only did like 50 pages.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#196

Post by lolinder »

ttiurani wrote: post #91
p-e-w wrote: post #10

The justifications given in that essay leave a really bad taste in my mouth: > I believe using "comprised of" is poor writing, because > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. That's true for many, many other words. In fact, most instances of definite and indefinite articles "add nothing to the language", since the actual…

> I'm going to impose my preference on everyone else, even though the term has been part of standard contemporary English for a long time. At least I, as a non-native speaker, find the edited sentences always easier to read. They simply make the text better. As the entire point od Wikipedia is to make knowledge accessible with co-writing, I find it just wild that people would object to better language. So who exactly…

With all due respect, if you're not a native English speaker you really aren't in a position to judge what constitutes "better language". I speak fluent Spanish but I wouldn't presume to correct a native Spanish speaker on their style.

I also wouldn't base your opinions of what makes for good English on the ramblings of one Wikipedian whose primary argument seems to be that they had to work hard to learn to use the word a particular way and so everyone else should for the rest of time.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#197

Post by [deleted] »

Nevermark wrote: post #138
mock-possum wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sure it’d be unsettling but like… what, are you just going to stop language from changing? Good luck with that. We’re just along for the ride, if people start using it that way, then that’s what it means now. Objecting to that is about as much use as to be pissed into the wind.

If language legitimately changes so a sentence or phrase has two opposite yet universally used meanings, (presumably resolved in each instance by context), it would still be better writing to avoid it when clarity of meaning is paramount. Encyclopedias are a good place to make as few assumptions and gambles as possible with regard to how a reader might comprehend what is written.

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#198

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

p-e-w wrote: post #10

The justifications given in that essay leave a really bad taste in my mouth: > I believe using "comprised of" is poor writing, because > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. That's true for many, many other words. In fact, most instances of definite and indefinite articles "add nothing to the language", since the actual…

I suspect that this is an obsessive-compulsive thing. So as long as they're not making the articles worse then I say just let them do it if they need to.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#199

Post by hhjinks »

FabHK wrote: post #103
p-e-w wrote: post #10

The justifications given in that essay leave a really bad taste in my mouth: > I believe using "comprised of" is poor writing, because > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. That's true for many, many other words. In fact, most instances of definite and indefinite articles "add nothing to the language", since the actual…

> That's true for many, many other words. Well, yes, but other words aren’t wrong and irritating to many readers. The point is that the usage in question has several disadvantages, but zero redeeming features. > "To comprise" and "to be comprised of" contain the same word, but not in the same sense. That’s not the point. “To shoot” and “to be shot” contain the same word, but mean opposite things, but that’s a well un…

I don't see it. The 50 states comprise the United States. The United States is comprised of the 50 states. You can change the word, and the exact same "issues" persist. The 50 states make up the whole of the United States. The whole of the United Sates is made up of the 50 states.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#200

Post by capableweb »

lolinder wrote: post #196
ttiurani wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm going to impose my preference on everyone else, even though the term has been part of standard contemporary English for a long time. At least I, as a non-native speaker, find the edited sentences always easier to read. They simply make the text better. As the entire point od Wikipedia is to make knowledge accessible with co-writing, I find it just wild that people would object to better language. So who exactly…

With all due respect, if you're not a native English speaker you really aren't in a position to judge what constitutes "better language". I speak fluent Spanish but I wouldn't presume to correct a native Spanish speaker on their style. I also wouldn't base your opinions of what makes for good English on the ramblings of one Wikipedian whose primary argument seems to be that they had to work hard to learn to use the w…

> With all due respect, if you're not a native English speaker you really aren't in a position to judge what constitutes "better language"

They said "find the edited sentences always easier to read" and that's valuable regardless if you're a native speaker or not. Of course, what "better language" is as subjective as "clean code" so probably won't reach any consensus there.

But all of this is highly subjective in the end, so everyone's opinion is equally worth, native speaker or not.

Post reply on HN