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

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

#511

Post by npteljes » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:33 PM UTC

tayo42 wrote: post #483

make3 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one guy deciding to change 90k articles unilateraly is kind of insane indeed.

i find grammar obsession on the internet to be insane overall. you ever use the wrong their/there/theyre and have some guy reply with some unhinged comment. such odd behavior

Grammar is many things packed in one. For one, it can signal a bunch of things, like maturity, superficiality, seriousness, intelligence. The lack of tolerance, like in you're example, is likely just someone who wants to vent, not a genuine concern for grammar.

The other thing is that writing on the open internet means that potentially many people will read the writing. Good grammar is borne out of routine, but this only works if the people practice the right thing - if they practice the wrong thing, then next time they'll potentially do the wrong thing by habit. So really, good grammar depends on reading texts with good grammar. It's also how we pick up vocabulary. Putting these things together, I think people owe it to each other, and the collective humanity, that they produce quality writings on public places.

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

#512

Post by jaggederest » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:34 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #472

jaggederest wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This person's arguments seem to hold water. Not in the slightest. Categorically, he's using prescriptive arguments, which are bunk. Language evolves, people can use it however they want.

Nonsense. Editors will edit based on whatever style guides they use and what's generally considered "proper" usage while respecting the author's stylistic choices as much as possible. With respect to this case, I'd have to see a given usage in context but I would probably generally leave it as is. If I'm editing you I'll try to avoid making a lot of changes that boil down to stylistic choice but I will absolutely cha…

Right, and they're free to do so, just don't try to justify it by saying it's "correct". I'm not saying we should write poorly, or deliberately sloppily, just it's at the author or editor's preference.

I'd support this guy if he said "I hate 'comprised of' and so I am changing it where I can", but the idea that there's somehow a logical argument justifying it is silly. Appeal to authority is particularly silly in the context of linguistics.

If you like MLA style, do that. I personally love a little extra diaeresis and the oxford comma, but I wouldn't make them the law.

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

#513

Post by npteljes » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:34 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #431

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.

I think you mean that it cares about usage, not rules.

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

#514

Post by ikekkdcjkfke » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:36 PM UTC

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.

Fork it

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

#515

Post by cogitoergofutuo » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:36 PM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #496

cogitoergofutuo wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's about writing encyclopedia articles in a way that's best for their readers. This sentence contains a load-bearing “best”. The Wikipedia editor’s contention is that they have established the canonical “best”, and it is that contention that is being scrutinized.

"Best for readers" is not particularly subjective here. We're talking about an encyclopedia whose audience is the entire English-speaking population. Its #1 job is to communicate relevant information on each topic clearly and accurately to the broadest audience in each language - not to match anyone's preferred terminology, write Shakespearean prose, or push the boundaries of the language. We already have multiple wo…

> "Best for readers" is not particularly subjective here.

This is correct. It is exactly the same amount of subjective as the word “best” normally holds. Since there has never been a reproducible measure of best-ness in any objective sense of anything linguistic, it’s squarely in the territory of subjectivity.

If by “best” you mean “understandable to virtually all readers” then “comprised of” and “composed of” are equally “best”

If best-ness is measured by something other than usefulness, then the person that decides the new set of weights with which to weigh best-ness is performing a personal and subjective act. “Orthodoxy to a standard of English as cited by me in context of the year x” does not automatically qualify something for extra best-ness points.

I will gladly entertain the issue of “comprised of” somehow lacking in accuracy with a person that is genuinely confused by its inclusion in a sentence.

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

#516

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:36 PM UTC

tayo42 wrote: post #498

epgui wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about the unhinged comments, but grammar is important and people who don’t care are wrong not to care.

Thats just your opinion. if you understand me and i understand you then were good. my experience with grammar is that it just explains how we talk, like music theory. when your young and learning to speak, you just speak, your parent (probably) don't sit down with a white board and explain noun and complex verbs tenses at the age of four

[deleted]

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

#517

Post by epgui » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

junon wrote: post #510

tayo42 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats just your opinion. if you understand me and i understand you then were good. my experience with grammar is that it just explains how we talk, like music theory. when your young and learning to speak, you just speak, your parent (probably) don't sit down with a white board and explain noun and complex verbs tenses at the age of four

Grammar is a linguistic study and more than just "like, a general guideline." For example, "you're" and "your" are two very different words. Let people obsess. They're not hurting you.

There's also a well-known thing about English in that it's culturally much less prescriptive about grammar than other languages. The American-English philosophy around grammar doesn't necessarily transpose to other grammars around the world.

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

#518

Post by kevinpet » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:37 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…

Forgive me if I decline to take writing advice from someone who tells me "I go house" is meaningful English. It isn't. It's violates the rules of grammar, rules which are a description of the normal English as used by members of the English speaking community. English expects you to specify whether you go into, towards, around, out of, or through the window of a house, or the house that we already know we are talking about, or Joe's house.

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

#519

Post by npteljes » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:39 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"…

I agree with you. Frankly, utilize instead of use just sounds finicking. As an engineer, I'd use it in a corporate powerpoint that I make to impress management. These kind of things have no place in Wikipedia.

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

#520

Post by tayo42 » Sat, May 06, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

epgui wrote: post #504

tayo42 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats just your opinion. if you understand me and i understand you then were good. my experience with grammar is that it just explains how we talk, like music theory. when your young and learning to speak, you just speak, your parent (probably) don't sit down with a white board and explain noun and complex verbs tenses at the age of four

Sorry, what things were good and when? Your young what?

If we were speaking out loud you could figure it out