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

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

#321

Post by lolinder »

bloppe wrote: post #315
cogitoergofutuo wrote: post #307

I love these one-person crusades against present reality. Words mean whatever a critical mass of people want them to mean. For example, the usage of the present tense here: "Composed of" and "consists of" are better alternatives. is incorrect. It should read: Composed of" and "consists of" were better alternatives. This thread is literally a clout ATM machine for a group comprised of pedants.

The problem here is the ambiguity. Someone who uses the original meaning of comprise will interpret a sentence in the opposite way of someone using the new. "America comprises many states and territories" -> "Many states and territories are comprised of America" have the same meaning with the original definition. With the new definition, you'd have to invert both sentences. This is called a Janus word because it can…

> the original is still more widespread than the new.

I'm not so sure. Google ngrams has the new usage recently taking over in published books[0], and those usually learn conservative in their usage.

[0] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22comprised+o... (this works because ~no one uses comprise in the passive voice in the old meaning)

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

#322

Post by Xorakios »

vajrabum wrote: post #251
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"…

Interesting. If you look at Wiktionary or if you prefer, your favorite etymology dictionary, the word utilize is descended from Latin from the French word utiliser, via the Italian utilizzare which got it from the Latin utilis. All of those words mean to use. I'd be the last person to say you're wrong. Matters of grammar and usage ultimately boil down to does it feel right and current usage. As is usual with these th…

Harrumph, but you are certainly not the last person to type that you are incorrect and it all boils down to the dialectic.

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

#323

Post by kazinator »

crazydoggers wrote: post #304
kazinator wrote: post #245

Prepositions combine with verbs to form phrasal verbs, and it's possible for phrasal verbs to have their own semantics that is removed from the base verb. For instance, "get in" or "get up" are different verbs from "get". It's also possible for a participial adjective (formed by "to be" + participle + preposition) to be an idiom. An example of this is "to be heard of" which means to be known or recognized. This has d…

First of all, he seems like a perfectly happy person, so I’m assuming saying he’s “sad” is attacking him personally because you don’t agree with him.. which is sad. Second, comprised already means “consists of”. Unlike your example, heard, which is the past tense if hear. So “comprised of” essentially means “consists of of” which is nonsense. Hence why it’s better to say “comprises” rather than “comprised of”.

Meaning is not macro replacement.

If we suppose that "comprised" means "consists of", it does not follow that "comprised of" means "consists of of".

(Setting aside, for a moment, that "comprised" does not mean "consists of").

Just like "make" possibly meaning "create" doesn't imply that "make up" can turn into "create up".

To comprise means for something to contain certain components (usually with a nuance that the list of components is complete). Since at least the 18th century, it has been used in a reverse way: components can comprise the whole. Charles Dickens used it in this reverse sense. It is from this reverse usage that the participial adjective arises: if components can comprise the whole, the whole is comprised of those components. Both the reverse usage and the adverb have been disputed, but are now hundreds of years old. The popularity of the participial adjective has wildly increased in the last half century.

There is a logical reason behind the the reversal of comprise that doesn't seem to get discussed.

Because comprise has a completeness nuance, it is actually a form of equivalence: if X comprises of parts A, B and C, it means it is equal to those parts. There is nothing else to X but A, B and C. Since equivalance commutes, comprise is expected to follow suit: A, B and C comprise X.

Comprise really means something like "exactly covers" or "corresponds to in an exhaustive whole/part relationship".

All that has happened is that we have lifted the restriction that the left operand of comprise must be the aggregate, and the right operand be the individual items.

> attacking him personally because you don’t agree with him

I was going to write "pseudo-intellectual twit on a lunatic correction rampage", but I went with "sad" to be nice.

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

#324

Post by lolinder »

bluepod4 wrote: post #317
cogitoergofutuo wrote: post #307

I love these one-person crusades against present reality. Words mean whatever a critical mass of people want them to mean. For example, the usage of the present tense here: "Composed of" and "consists of" are better alternatives. is incorrect. It should read: Composed of" and "consists of" were better alternatives. This thread is literally a clout ATM machine for a group comprised of pedants.

The present tense is fine in this case. The author means “composed of” and “consists of” are better phrases to use in general (i.e. according to style guides), not were better phrases exclusively for use on his Wikipedia project. We know this for sure because in the “Quotations” section the author says that he changes “comprised of” to “composed of” or “comprises” in quotations under certain circumstances. He is not…

I'm pretty sure it's a joke: those were better alternatives but they're equally valid now and it's time for the author to let the language change and move on.

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

#325

Post by sunir »

lolinder wrote: post #278
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"…

> It's not just that some people dislike it; it's simply wrong. Language changes. Words frequently develop the opposite meaning of what they originally had—opposites seem to be semantically closer and more prone to switching than completely unrelated words. When a word changes meaning, it is not wrong to use it in the new way, and at some point it even becomes wrong to use it in the original way: if you used "terrifi…

Well, that's not much of a value argument, just a statement of reality that entropy exists and everything becomes crap over time without maintenance.

Gardens also grow. But if you don't maintain your garden, they ahem literally become weeded, cough figuratively speaking.

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

#326

Post by denton-scratch »

emodendroket wrote: post #73
netsharc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most fun is reading threads about cars or racing, where people say "break" when they mean "brake". Should we accept "break" to mean deceleration, or as a noun for the equipment to slow down a vehicle, then?

We can rather tidily solve this by saying orthography and writing systems are artificial methods of representing the spoken language which have prescriptive rules. English spelling certainly shows that it's not difficult to retain many spellings that no longer accurately reflect the pronunciation of the word, if they ever did in the first place. On the other hand, preventing grammatical changes or semantic shift in w…

> if they ever did in the first place

It's a distinctive feature of English that spelling and pronunciation are only loosely related. It's because of the history of the language; and of the country, for that matter.

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

#327

Post by dionidium »

cogitoergofutuo wrote: post #307

I love these one-person crusades against present reality. Words mean whatever a critical mass of people want them to mean. For example, the usage of the present tense here: "Composed of" and "consists of" are better alternatives. is incorrect. It should read: Composed of" and "consists of" were better alternatives. This thread is literally a clout ATM machine for a group comprised of pedants.

This thread is proof of the opposite, in fact. Since neither "composed of" nor "consists of" generate 300+ comment Hacker News threads, they are plainly better.

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

#328

Post by itslennysfault »

cogitoergofutuo wrote: post #307

I love these one-person crusades against present reality. Words mean whatever a critical mass of people want them to mean. For example, the usage of the present tense here: "Composed of" and "consists of" are better alternatives. is incorrect. It should read: Composed of" and "consists of" were better alternatives. This thread is literally a clout ATM machine for a group comprised of pedants.

Well.... tell that to the AP style guide I guess.

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

#329

Post by Macha »

lolinder wrote: post #213
capableweb wrote: post #200

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" 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 speake…

> 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

Side note, there is an actual "simplified english" wikipedia. So even early learners who want a simplified resource have one aside from regular Wikipedia. https://simple.wikipedia.org/

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

#330

Post by Xorakios »

jfk13 wrote: post #274
naniwaduni wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The (expected) face-value meaning of "comprised of" is usually best substituted by "part of": All Gaul comprises three parts -> Three parts are comprised of all Gaul.

> All Gaul comprises three parts -> Three parts are comprised of all Gaul. No, that doesn't work. You could, however, say "Gaul is comprised of three parts". https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/cw-comprise-comprised...

Gaul should be ruled by Rome. There are no three parts.
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