> It's illogical for a word to mean two opposite things.
LOL, can't wait for this person to dedicate their life to fixing the Japanese wikipedia.
Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
211–220 of 735 posts
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
This is the crux of the issue to me - this use of "comprised of" is a completely logical and consistent usage whether or not some people think it's wrong. Plenty of times correct constructions are considered wrong by lots of people, this is what leads to the phenomenon of "hypercorrections". I won't argue that this is necessarily one since the "corrections" don't strike me as better or worse, but languages are inherently subjective. For this reason I find it distasteful to go around enforcing linguistic policies on others.
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I was responding to this:
> I find it just wild that people would object to better language.
They're either saying that their own sense of what is more legible is enough to define what is better, or they're buying into the pedantic arguments in TFA.
As to what is easier to read, I think the English Wikipedia should be written to be legible to native English speakers. This is better for everyone: native English speakers can read their Wikipedia, and English learners get exposed to actual English usage rather than a simplified version.
In this case, it's not obvious to me that any substantial portion of the English-speaking population sincerely gets confused by "comprised of". It feels much more like the insistence on not ending sentences in prepositions: a rule for the sake of having a rule.
EDIT: In fact, "comprised of" recently overtook "comprises" in published books:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22comprised+o...
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#214"Comprises" means "consists of". So "comprised of" means "consists of of". It's not just that some people dislike it; it's simply wrong.
Whenever I come across the word "utilize" in WP, I change it to "use" (with the edit comment "Don't utilize utilize"). Nobody's ever reverted me for that.
I think there is a proper use for the verb "utilize": it means "to render useful". But usually, it's just a substitute for "use" that sounds more erudite, or something. I think to utilize something is to take something that is useless, and turn it into something useful. That's not the same as using the thing.
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#215I enjoy collecting little things like this to annoy the grammar gatekeepers. Why say "regardless" when "irregardless" means the same thing but also annoys prescriptivists? "Ironical" instead of "ironic" and "less" instead of "fewer".
Now that I know, "comprised of" fits in this category, it's definitely going to be a part of the everyday lexicon.
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#216The 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 don’t love “is comprised of,” and think it can usually be replaced with something like “contains” or simply “is,” resulting in a better, more direct sentence. But I’m not going to go on a crusade against it.
The alphabet contains five vowels is a completely different statement from the alphabet is comprised of five vowels.
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#217The 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 don't agree with your 1984 analogy at all.
A better source might be George Orwell's actual, explicit opinions on politics and the English language:
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
Orwell certainly did not take an "anything goes" approach to language, which is essentially what you and others argue for, in the mistaken belief that you're somehow striking a blow at totalitarianism. From my perspective, your position is much closer to the Newspeak ethos than that of someone who actually cares about correct usage.
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#218Could somebody do the same for “nonplussed”? We have now given that poor poor word two opposite meanings. Currently, I have no idea what somebody means when they say they’re nonplussed.
I will say that word is always confusing, perhaps the #1 example.
Because with other classic examples, such as the verb "to table" meaning the opposite thing in the US and UK, you can at least always figure it out from context (if not from the accent, ha). And we know that "inflammable" is never used to mean fireproof.
But the two opposite meanings of "nonplussed", there's very often zero contextual indication as to which meaning is intended. And both meanings are used frequently, so it's in this total unresolved limbo state.
For me, it's the one word I won't use at all, precisely for this reason. There's simply no way to be properly understood.
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#219Earlier 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, I am a native English speaker and I agree with the GP. I wouldn't go as far as the Wikipedian in question (I surely have far better uses of my time than to make many tens of thousands of edits over a trivial nitpick), but the end result does read better and I'd have a hard time justifying a reversion of such an edit.
Also, considering that plenty of non-native English speakers read the English Wikipedia, there is plenty of value in the English writing in the English Wikipedia being maximally clear without sacrificing the intended meaning of the text. Dismissing feedback out of hand on the basis of "well the person giving the feedback ain't a native English speaker" misses the point of Wikipedia being a resource for everyone.
Broadening this beyond Wikipedia, the English language itself "is comprised of" countless words and grammatical structures yanked straight out of other languages, often by non-native speakers importing features of their native languages for all sorts of reasons. Knowing this history, I hereby authorize non-native speakers to critique the language and elements thereof; it's just as much their language as it is mine, and they therefore have just as much a right to it as I do.
Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”
#220This leaves a bad taste in my mouth because of our history in Germany. There was a bunch of institutes for the "Erhaltung der deutschen Sprache" which were all founded under the umbrella of a quasi-propaganda organization that officially was just a society/club. [1] They created their own "purified" dictionary with a "clean language" that was trying to find replacements for foreign words, and strengthen the nationali…
We still have Türk Dil Kurumu (Institute of Turkish Language) in Turkey. In their website, their motto is declared as "Our Language is our Identity" (Dilimiz Kimliğimizdir). They proposed so many silly words, at one point people were coming up with fake translations attributed to them and others were believing in those, turning them to urban legends. One such legend is my favorite: Turkish word: Tren (Train) Supposed…
> My best attempt, perhaps GPTs can do better
I doubt it's been trained on that, here is what it told me:
> I'm sorry, but the phrase "Alttan ittirmeli üstten tüttürmeli çok oturgaçlı getirgeçli götürgeç" appears to be a nonsensical combination of Turkish words. It doesn't have a clear meaning or context.