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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”

#701

Post by eynsham »

eynsham wrote: post #239
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…

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 t…

I should have said ‘conflict of intuitions’, not ‘interest’; it’s too late to edit now.

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

#702

Post by clarkdale »

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"…

Hey there, when you are quoting and ending a sentence, you should place the period inside the quotes. I understand if you are new to writing in the English language.

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

#703

Post by joseda-hg »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #657
logicchains wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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".

The word "notright" is as clear of an example as you can get: does it mean straight or left? Up? The most confoundingly powerful feature of language is ambiguity: on one hand, you can't take it literally; on the other hand, you don't have to.

I think the example doesn't quite do it justice, a better interpretation would be antiright, which would be unambiguous

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

#704

Post by tekknik »

oezi wrote: post #404
klyrs wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other case, it wastes the attention of 90k authors who need to figure out whether they care and have their writing style overridden by a rando. On the other hand, if you're editing wikipedia and you expect your writing to not be subject to rando edits, you won't last long.

Rando edits by pedantic a*-hats who don't care about the actual topic but their weird crusade. /s

Why the /s? That was spot on.

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

#705

Post by pixelbath »

pbreit wrote: post #93
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 read this and googled a bit and don't quite understand what the problem is with "comprised of". The author says this "The 9th district is comprised of all of Centerville" should be replaced by "The 9th district comprises all of Centerville"? That's it? Is there some way to see what edits were made?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Giraffed...

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

#706

Post by riffraff »

bombcar wrote: post #223
riffraff wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh that misses my favorite, "egregiously" which means both done very well and done exceptionally wrong, the latter used more commonly, the former archaic. But in my language we only use the original positive meaning, so I was deeply confused by English using it for a long time.

There’s a number that change over time; awful and terrible for example. Very old hymns talk about how awful and terrible God is, for example.

Ah yes, this is indeed the subject of a Terry Pratchett bit about elves in "Lords and Ladies"

> Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.

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

#707

Post by za3faran »

adjav wrote: post #280
za3faran wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because there was an incident involving an extremist group, does not make the whole thing wrong or incorrect. As a counter example, High Arabic has been meticulously preserved, and Arab speakers take pride in that fact, regardless of the many spoken dialects that exist.

That's like saying Classical Latin has been meticulously preserved. Technically true, but entirely irrelevant.

It's not, because High Arabic is used on a daily basis.

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

#708

Post by htfu »

denton-scratch wrote: post #587
skupig wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct according to whom? The language you speak is the result of thousands of years of casual communication by billions of human beings. Precriptivism of a living natural language is hubris. What seems like perfect English to you is not perfect to everyone.

> The language you speak is the result of thousands of years of casual communication by billions of human beings. Disagree. The language I speak didn't exist 800 years ago. The Anglo-saxons wouldn't have understood me, and I wouldn't have understood them. And there were barely a billion human beings just 800 years ago - forget about thousands of years. I didn't mention "prescriptivism", although it's obviously the op…

Whether or not that is the case, once enough wrong'uns do their thing it becomes correct, correct? Whatever the history or logic or what have you. So it becomes more a question of whether "90k instances on Wikipedia, has made it into dictionaries" is either far too late, or merely a lost cause.

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

#709

Post by htfu »

FabHK wrote: post #103
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…

> That's true for many, many other words. Well, yes, but other words aren’t wrong and irritating to many readers. The point is that the usage in question has several disadvantages, but zero redeeming features. > "To comprise" and "to be comprised of" contain the same word, but not in the same sense. That’s not the point. “To shoot” and “to be shot” contain the same word, but mean opposite things, but that’s a well un…

But there's loads of stuff like that. "Take a shot" and "take a bullet" (pretty much covers both ends no less)

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

#710

Post by msla »

samirillian wrote: post #693
msla wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell wasn't a linguist, so his ideas about language are suspect. Linguists study languages as natural things because that's how it works: Humans speak, humans change how they speak, and language evolves, whereas "Newspeak" was deliberately constructed such that "correctness" was controlled by a tight coterie of people in charge, utterly without regard for making language useful, which you'd know if you read the nov…

First of all, I have read 1984, and I wouldn't take issue with the analogy if I hadn't. Whether you have read any other books, I cannot say. Second, you say Orwell isn't a linguist, and language just happens, but then you explicitly reference his fictional account of a prescribed language. Clearly, Esperanto is a prescribed language. So prescribed languages do exist, and political forces can shape languages, you just…

> Clearly, Esperanto is a prescribed language. So prescribed languages do exist and political forces can shape languages, you just don't think that happens with English.

You're misreading me: I'm saying that English didn't come into existence by fiat, and that it doesn't evolve through fiat most of the time. English, being a natural language as opposed to a constructed one, evolves naturally.

> Well I do. People reference so-called "descriptive" dictionaries and grammars, yet don't those texts themselves inherently acquire a prescriptive force, insofar as they originate at elite institutions like Oxford and Cambridge and UChicago?

That doesn't change the fact they're descriptive. It also doesn't change the fact linguistics is descriptive.

> I think descriptivism is an incredibly naive position to take when talking about modern languages that have agglomerated for explicit social, political, and economic projects, and I think that was Orwell's point.

Well, you can get a degree in linguistics and learn what "descriptivism" actually means, then, because you certainly don't know it now.

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