Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of” • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by robswc » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:12 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #193

soraminazuki wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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".

I can get behind the "notlight" but "notright"... feels like something my brain would never get used to haha.

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

#232

Post by crazygringo » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

irthomasthomas wrote: post #179

Now please do same for "factoid". The recent inversion of the definition of factoid is a much bigger problem. The term originates from medical science and means "a FALSE fact that is believed to be true after appearing in print". But some journalists miss understood it to mean "a small, but TRUE fact." Their new definition was false, but is now believed to be true after appearing in print. So, the modern definition o…

You're incorrect about the origin. According to Merriam-Webster [1]:

> We can thank Norman Mailer for factoid: he used the word in his 1973 book Marilyn (about Marilyn Monroe), and he is believed to be the coiner of the word.

But who cares? A word totally invented just five short decades ago quickly morphed, as MW continues:

> The word has since evolved so that now it most often refers to things that decidedly are facts, just not ones that are significant.

Why should Norman Mailer's made-up definition get precedence over the people who actually use it? Just because you coin something doesn't mean you own it. I don't think future historians are going to be confused. Never in my life have I encountered the word "factoid" used in Mailer's sense, until reading your comment. The new definition has long since taken over, long live fun little facts — long live factoids!

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/factoid

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

#233

Post by haswell » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #200

lolinder wrote: post #196

Earlier 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…

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

That subjectivity doesn’t equate to the equal worth of all opinions. It just means that no one opinion can be considered universal.

That lack of universality doesn’t mean that picking any one direction is as good as picking any other.

If I strongly prefer a Victorian style, giving my preference equal weight is likely to make the content far less valuable, because my preference is not a common one.

It would be necessary to examine the goals behind the content: the audience it is intended for, the desired effect on that audience, the nuances lost by preferring audience B over Audience A, the impact of that loss, etc.

Everyone should be allowed to have a preference, absolutely, but applying individual preferences to content does not lead to equivalent outcomes.

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

#234

Post by pclmulqdq » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

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…

"Comprises" is frequently used in patent writing, but I have rarely seen it elsewhere. I think its use, both in patents and normal English, has a particular connotation, that "is comprised of" doesn't carry otherwise:

* When I hear "X comprises Y and Z," I think that the author is saying that X includes Y and Z as its key parts, but is not precluding the existence of other parts

* When I hear "X is comprised of Y and Z," I think Y and Z are the only parts of X

This might have originally been a misuse of the word "comprise" to mean "compose," but I feel like that's a pretty big distinction in meaning.

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

#235

Post by wdr1 » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:16 PM UTC

The interesting thing about the English language is that once 50% of the popular starts to use a word or phrase incorrectly, they become correct.

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

#236

Post by fauxpause_ » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:17 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #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"…

This post is comprised good points.

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

#237

Post by denton-scratch » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:17 PM UTC

tysam_and wrote: post #97

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…

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…

> People can horribly misuse the phrase "comprised of".

I think that phrase is always incorrect. I suspect the problem is that people aren't used to words that take a list as their direct argument, like "comprise".

Wikipedia leans heavily to descriptivism (as do nearly all lexicons, these days). So there's no incorrect usage; there's only usage that jars, for some people.

I don't go around telling people they're ignorant because they can't speak their mother-tongue properly. That would simply be rude. But English text intended for publication should be correct English; it shouldn't be garbled, whether because it's written by a non-native speaker, or a native speaker who isn't well-read.

That implies that there is such a thing as "correct English". This seems obvious to me, but that's exactly what descriptivists deny.

Let's not get into whether "literally" is a synonym for "figuratively".

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

#238

Post by bombcar » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #141

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used "incorrectly" in place of thee, thou, and thy in familiar speech.

Yes, I know, but we are not without second-person pronouns at all; we just no longer have separate singular and plural ones.

Y’all is coming so you best be ready for the second person plural.

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

#239

Post by eynsham » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

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…

It’s not obvious to me that only native speakers should have the right to pronounce on linguistic changes or the aptness of linguistic use. Some possible arguments, and responses:

1. Non-native speakers lack the competence necessary to make such pronouncements.

It’s false to deny that many non-native speakers acquire near-native competence. So if we think that ordinary native speakers have the right to pronounce on these questions, at least some particularly skilled non-native speakers should too. Perhaps the claim then is that there’s a high standard that only a few native speakers and no non-native speakers reach. It’s unclear what would motivate that view; given that language is something we all use, it is doubtful that e.g. the perspicacity of a particular construction should only be commented upon by the most skilled speakers.

2. Native speakers’ claims to influence languages should have priority over those of non-native speakers.

We might simply view this as obvious, in which case there’s something of a conflict of interest. I think the more plausible argument is grounded in the use of language. Someone who never uses French will not really have particularly important opinions on its use. The problem here is that it’s unclear why native speakers’ intuitions are really more important. The English language is surely just as important to a Nigerian civil servant who operates nearly entirely in English as it is to one in Whitehall. The difference between non-native speakers and native speakers don’t seem relevant unless we take being a native speaker per se to be of import.

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

#240

Post by hgsgm » Sat, May 06, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #224

samirillian wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

hey qq who decides what correct is

The marketplace of ideas.