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

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

#71

Post by Glawen » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:31 AM UTC

eastbound wrote: post #37

eru wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even if there was an Académie, what authority would they have? Eg the French have one, but that doesn't mean they have any moral authority.

Since the topic is “who defines English”, it’s useful to list our experiences with Académie Française. - Seats can only be replaced at death, which explains the advanced age. I generally think old people have more experience than younger ones, but opinions vary, and youngism and modernism are a thing. - The first woman in the Académie, in 1980, was Marguerite Yourcenar, and she probably was the most non-feminist woma…

What you call feminist writing has been around in academic circles for a long time, it really burst out recently with woke movement.

I like the idea about Académie, at least it defines a way to write new words. Some are picked up by people, and others are ignored, but that's ok too.

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

#72

Post by newswasboring » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

> Not everyone agrees "comprised of" is wrong, but no one finds it better than the alternatives.

Brilliant way to make a decision in a community. I wish more discussions had room for such thought patterns.

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

#73

Post by emodendroket » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #39

tsimionescu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it became common usage, yes? If most people make "a habitual mistake", then by whose authority of it a mistake? > Sure, but why should people who can’t use the language properly (*) be an uncontested force in that evolution? How do you think English and all other modern languages formed? If some authority were able to stop people who can't use a language properly from evolving it, the people on the British isles w…

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 words over time is impossible. Nobody's ever managed that (perhaps we could find some exceptions among languages that are used in religious or ceremonial contexts primarily and not as someone's regular means of communication).

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

#74

Post by sholladay » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:33 AM UTC

housemusicfan wrote: post #35

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #3

This definitely falls deep into the pedantry zone. Lots of modern English uſage was once wrong and has become normalized. The language doeſn't have an Académie calling the ſhots. It inevitably evolves, warts and all.

No one seems to understand Wikipedia operates as a system of lords and serfs, where a powerful few pull this crap all the time . Most relevant example I can think of is when Mac OS X was renamed and stylized to "macOS" someone went and systematically did a find and replace all instances of "OS X" to macOS even in situations where it made absolutely no sense as the article was explicitly talking about prior versions.…

There are probably hundreds of articles that mention macOS. What are you suggesting that they do, edit them all individually by hand? That could take months. If more than half of the instances deserve to be updated, then replace all saves time. You can always check the diff and undo any damage.

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

#75

Post by nicklaf » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:33 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #49

nicklaf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantic, perhaps, but within the purview of an editor of an encyclopedia enforcing a style guideline!

Except there is no such thing. To quote. > Wikipedia does not have a policy or guideline on whether "comprised of" is welcome in the encyclopedia. This is nothing less but one person trying to punch way above their weight in shaping the English language.

Hmm, I suppose I'm inclined to agree with you here.

If Wikipedia chooses not to adopt a style guideline on matters like this, his little quest to robo-edit this phrase is unrepresentative of Wikipedians.

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

#76

Post by bee_rider » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:33 AM 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…

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.

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

#77

Post by kstrauser » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:35 AM UTC

readthenotes1 wrote: post #13

kstrauser wrote: post #7

Doing God’s work, fella. This is also a pet peeve of mine.

Your peeve is comprised of people using a word to mean two opposite meanings, as if to make up for flammable and inflammable meaning the same?

Don’t make me throw my Strunk & White at you.

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

#78

Post by DonHopkins » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:35 AM UTC

cesaref wrote: post #51

arthurcolle wrote: post #28

A true hero. I respect their efforts and wish them well. Wikipedia moderation/editor gang continues to set new records for anal-retentiveness and obfuscated motivations but as long as I can keep slurping up enwiki-pages-articles dumps, I'll leave them alone and wish them well.

I just hope that they don't wake up one morning and realise they've wasted years of their life on some trivial crusade. Actually, that could apply to a lot of us on HN I guess :)

A life comprised of pedantry is a life well lived.

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

#79

Post by fwlr » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:35 AM UTC

“Languages change over time” is often deployed as an argument against pedantry. I believe pedantry is a useful force (akin to friction) and it plays a necessary role in the change of language over time. A language change has proven its worth if it can spread faster than pedantry can resist it.

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

#80

Post by emodendroket » Sat, May 06, 2023, 6:36 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #27

gsinclair wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why should people who can’t use the language properly ( ) be an uncontested force in that evolution? ( ) If we can’t say that “comprised of” is objectively wrong, then what _can_ we say about English? Should we accept “bought” as a legitimate past tense of “bring”? Sometimes people are just making a habitual mistake. It happens to me, too.

I accept his argument but it is tilting at windmills. Is it valid to engage in mass erasure of a historical record to suit outmoded ideas? The issue here is that an existing word has acquired a new usage and the old guard isn't happy with the change. There was once much grousing about youths failing to properly conjugate second person pronouns. Now it's anachronistic to use them.

"You" is still around so we do still have second-person pronouns.