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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”

#431

Post by echelon »

ezekiel68 wrote: post #414

I don't know the right solution to this problem, but I wish there were some kind of effective defense mechanism in open society against activist superminorities. Pedants tilting at windmills shouldn't be able to alter the cultural landscape this easily. I am aware that their problem and my problem are privileged "first-world problems". The seeds of the open society carry the germ of this pathology, I guess.

> some kind of effective defense mechanism in open society against activist superminorities.

I'll be using comprised of more frequently. I was already a satisfied user, but now I'll continue with glee.

Language changes and evolves to serve the purpose of communication. It doesn't care about rules or usage.

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

#432

Post by arrowsmith »

erikerikson wrote: post #291
George83728 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about people who are unfamiliar with the term xerox, meaning 'photocopy' (which has been in use this way for decades.) I'm talking about people who object to the use of this term because the Xerox company hates it (they could in principle lose their trademark because of it, but that's not my problem.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox#Trademark

See also Kleenex

The classic British example is "hoover".

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

#433

Post by s1artibartfast »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #379
s1artibartfast wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you call the intermediate stage where half of people have one definition and other half have a different one?

In this case, history.

As my parent post points out, it is certainly not history in the legal system and other fields where precise and Technical meanings matter.

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

#434

Post by spacephysics »

gnulinux wrote: post #419
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"…

I know this is shocking to people but if a phrase is systematically used by native speakers, it is then part of the language. There is no notion of native speakers being systematically wrong in linguistics. It wouldn't make sense scientifically. In order to examine natural languages using the scientific method, linguists gather data (i.e. native speakers' spoken or written communication) and then analyze this (i.e. f…

Fully agree, same can be said about ever young generation’s slang.

What “bet”, “cap”, “rizz” and others used by the younger population isn’t wrong, it’s different and an evolution of certain terms.

I don’t study linguistics, but I can be sure there are terms we use today and take as normal-speak that were once the center of a younger generation’s slang vernacular.

An extreme example is the word retard. Years ago in normal speak you could say “After the EPA enacted stricter emissions regulations, this initially retarded the development of sports cars until new technology was implemented” other obvious examples are the medical angle of the word.

Today, you could use the word in such a way, it’s technically correct, however you’ll most likely get some odd looks.

Most uses of it today are either in specific comedic circles, or derogatorily towards another person/thing/animal etc

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

#435

Post by prepend »

denton-scratch wrote: post #299
prepend wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re enforcing a style that’s not in a work’s style guide. That’s a total noob move for pedants. A more at weight pedant would work on changing the style guide. This is the equivalent of a self appointed hall monitor yelling “no skipping in the school hallway” when there’s no rule against skipping. The fact that some people don’t like skipping and that skipping is dangerous is not relevant, the place for that disc…

> A more at weight pedant would work on changing the style guide. Language pedantry is deprecated in Wikipedia. WP is resolutely descriptivist. I regret that; I'm fully on-board with the notion that language changes. But I'm not OK with the idea that there are no rules at all. Humpty Dumpty was wrong; English is not a language where any string of words could have any meaning. This is especially important in an encylo…

I agree that there are rules. I think the subject in this article is not following the rules.

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

#436

Post by lolinder »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #332
lolinder wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Semantic shift is certainly a phenomenon, but that doesn't mean that it should always be embraced or is useful. There's a clear use for unambiguous and Technical language. If you write a patent, statement of work, product specification, or contract with the wrong word out of ignorance, you only have yourself to blame

I'm fine with people being careful in their usage in contexts where precision matters. I even agree that Wikipedia is probably one of those places.

It's the weird value judgements that people like the author assign to different usages that really bother me. Objectively, "is comprised of" is correct usage. It's the majority usage in books published today, and it's in all the dictionaries.

If TFA had left it at "it's ambiguous" I wouldn't blink, but they had to go off on a rant about how wrong the modern usage is, and that's a problem. It feels elitist and reactionary.

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

#437

Post by Izkata »

jasomill wrote: post #156
redmorphium wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My itinerary is comprised of four hotel stays." ---> "My itinerary is comPOSED of four hotel stays." or "My itinerary coNSISTS of four hotel stays." Much better.

"I'll be staying at four hotels."

Correction: "I'm planning on staying at four hotels, but there might be more depending on how my trip goes (because it's not completely 100% planned out)."

"Consists of" creates a minimum bound, not an exact amount.

For that matter, meaning was already lost in the original post: If "comprised of" was used in the original sentence, it would mean at least one of the hotels was a destination itself rather than just a place to stay (a historic building or something, for example).

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

#438

Post by cookiengineer »

croisillon wrote: post #382
cookiengineer wrote: post #131

This 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…

you seem to be the first result with "Nagelindiewandschlageisen" in Google (and i guess i'll now be second)

The issue with our digital library is that the search there is not indexed, and most old German texts are not searchable either [1]

You can search for "Allgemeiner Deutscher Sprachverein" or "Atlas der deutschen Sprache" or similar, you'll find references to it but not the scanned books.

Welcome to the age of Digital Amnesia :'( [2]

Maybe the dossier about the burned books of WW2 is a good start to find things about it, but it's kinda hopeless without a search index. Alternatively there seems to be a lend-able copy in the library of Dresden [3] and [4]

[1] https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdZxI3nFVJs

[3] https://ausstellungen.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/verbra...

[4] https://katalog.slub-dresden.de/id/0-130149888

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

#439

Post by JW_00000 »

ezekiel68 wrote: post #414

I don't know the right solution to this problem, but I wish there were some kind of effective defense mechanism in open society against activist superminorities. Pedants tilting at windmills shouldn't be able to alter the cultural landscape this easily. I am aware that their problem and my problem are privileged "first-world problems". The seeds of the open society carry the germ of this pathology, I guess.

After your first sentence, I thought you were going to argue the opposite. This person's arguments seem to hold water. Aren't the people that argue with him and want to revert his edits a (very strange) activist superminority?

Maybe we need a defense mechanism against bike-shedding, no matter what color bikeshed one prefers?

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

#440

Post by andrewshadura »

hota_mazi wrote: post #210

Couldn't it be argued that it's totally okay to have two separate meanings for "to comprise" as a direct verb (A comprises B), and mean the opposite when used in indirect form (B is comprised of A)?

The issue here is that comprise means "being composed of". So instead of "A comprises B and C" people write "A is comprised of B and C".
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