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

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

#711

Post by fknorangesite » Sun, May 07, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

bandyaboot wrote: post #644

fknorangesite wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of "literally" as an intensifier goes back centuries. I'm not sure why people act as if it's some kind of new development.

I don’t doubt you’re right, but that doesn’t make it logical. I’m curious how common this sort of thing is in other languages—words or phrases taking on the opposite meaning of their literal definition. “I could care less” is an example of a phrase that’s commonly used in English. Perhaps it’s debatable whether that one has achieved acceptance or not.

> but that doesn’t make it logical.

Natural languages aren't logical. Pretending or wishing otherwise is a fool's errand, and I guarantee there are many words and phrases you use all the time without thinking that are entirely illogical, but still make sense.

> words or phrases taking on the opposite meaning of their literal definition

The word you're looking for is "auto-antonym". Very common.

> “I could care less” ... Perhaps it’s debatable whether that one has achieved acceptance or not.

It has; the variance between could/couldn't is mainly regional. And it's an example of how phrases or idioms have independent meaning outside of the individual words.[1] Another good example is something like the [North American] "How are you?" - it's a greeting, not (usually) a literal question about how someone is.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phraseme

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

#712

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo » Sun, May 07, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

joseda-hg wrote: post #703

thomastjeffery wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

in orwellian newspeak, the whole point is to be ambigious so you can't point at harm.

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

#713

Post by wolverine876 » Sun, May 07, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

appletrotter wrote: post #548

ghaff wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and the oxford comma, but I wouldn't make them the law Oh, I would :-) But I do reluctantly conform to AP style in certain contexts. That said, there is a certain appeal to authority mindset if you're looking for mainstream non-fiction (and a lot of fiction as well) publication. Maybe "correct" isn't the right term but "accepted practice" or something along those lines which boils down to more or less the same thing…

Someone has already pointed out that this attitude can be described as a “prescriptivist” attitude. A prescriptivist will say that a term is “correct,” a descriptivist will say a term is “commonly accepted.” Personally, this is what I say to prescriptivists: if they want a language with legally defined rules - they should learn French.

Descriptivists also say, 'this way works better'.

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

#714

Post by wolverine876 » Sun, May 07, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #594

wolverine876 wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do reluctantly conform to AP style in certain contexts Why AP style - written specifically for journalists - instead of all the other styles such as APA, Chicago, etc. etc.?

The contexts are blog posts and press releases often targeted at journalists, who will often copy-paste sections, so standard company stye is to write in a way that conforms to what they use so they don't need to fix it up. Otherwise, I/we use Chicago and Oxford comma.

That makes sense.

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

#715

Post by arp242 » Sun, May 07, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

jl6 wrote: post #122

Wow, there’s a lot of unjustified negativity in this thread. The whole encyclopedia (and a whole bunch of the wider world of computing) is built out of this kind of hyper-focused nerding over details. These changes don’t make your day worse. He’s not shoving it in our faces or claiming it’s going to save the world. We don’t know what’s going on in this editor’s life or what he “should” be doing with his time instead.…

> The whole encyclopedia is built out of this kind of hyper-focused nerding over details.

Absolutely not. It's built out of people writing useful and information articles, not pedantic editing over personal language bugbears.

> These changes don’t make your day worse.

It shows up in people's watchlists and potentially dozens or hundreds of people will need to verify this change; it introduces edit conflicts, it invalidates drafts people were still working on. It absolutely adds work for other editors, and that's fine even for smaller changes (I have many small changes myself) if it actually improves the article, but all of this amounts to little more than "I don't like it".

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

#716

Post by robocat » Sun, May 07, 2023, 11:39 PM UTC

malicka wrote: post #639

robocat wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> twilight Perhaps that is lightandnotlight. We almost have notlight in English: unlit. An unlit room feels twilighty to me. > notright Left in Esperanto: maldekstra I can’t imagine why a language designer would choose “mal” as the prefix for “not”. In English and Spanish (two common languages), mal has some bad connotations (malodour, malady, malfeasance, malo, malformed). Let’s try the opposite: “not left” is defin…

> Let’s try the opposite: “not left” is definitely something different from “right” - urrrgggh. “Do not go left” doesn’t mean to go right. “maldekstra” doesn't actually mean “not right” — mal in Esperanto more precisely means “opposite.” Left is opposite of right, and so malmaldekstra (opposite of the opposite of right) is still right (dekstra). “Not right” in Esperanto doesn't exactly mean left, either, just like in…

Sure. It just feels like a malicious choice for left. No soy maleducado. !Tengo mucho mano izquirdo, y es derecho mio a decir la palabra “maldekstra” es «malappropriate»¡

http://www.anmal.uma.es/Numero9/Forment.htm

  Joan Bastardas habla de la extrañeza de la existencia de la palabra ensinistrar del catalán, puesto que tiene un significado claramente positivo a pesar de ser derivado de siniestro-a. «... ensinistrar que no deixa de sorprendre els qui s´acosten al català des d´altres llengües romàniques, en què les idees d´habilitat i aptesa s´associen amb la mà dreta i no amb la mà esquerra, el castellà adiestrar, l´italià addestrare; en francès hi ha dexterité, però també en català hi ha destresa i destre-a 'hàbil', 'expert', i també maldestre, com el francès maladroit». (Bastardas 1996: 26)

  la contraposición entre la bondad y la justicia — simbolizados por la derecha — y la maldad, el egoísmo —relacionados con la izquierda—.

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

#717

Post by mypornaccount » Sun, May 07, 2023, 11:53 PM UTC

gbromios wrote: post #181

I am personally a rabid descriptivist, but I still find myself somehow sympathetic to this editor's cause. Much like "literally", losing the "official" meaning of "comprise" would leave us (i.e. English speakers) without a word which uniquely captures that meaning. People will use words however however they will, and that's their absolute right. And without pretending that the aforementioned unique quality should (or…

Literally can still literally mean literally.

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

#718

Post by ludston » Mon, May 08, 2023, 12:59 AM UTC

devnullbrain wrote: post #695

ludston wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never too late to learn the meaning of a new word. Why just yesterday I was reading The Count of Monte Cristo, where the author used "felicity" in a context I'd not seen before. Fortunately in my very pocket was a powerful device that includes a dictionary unsurpassed in the history of mankind, and thus my brief ignorance was swiftly overcome! Perhaps the author meant to exclude me? Oh dear...

Ambiguity in conversation leads to problems every day. Leisurely reading is another world entirely.

Mm yes indeed. Context is important isn't it?

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

#719

Post by cryptonector » Mon, May 08, 2023, 1:14 AM UTC

canjobear wrote: post #596

cryptonector wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a tension between prescriptivism and descriptivism, and it has to do with the rate at which the language evolves. Prescriptivism resists language evolution. Decriptivism allows the language to evolve as fast as people wish to evolve it. Some rate of language change has to be accepted, but it needn't be as fast as if we rejected all prescriptivism. We each prescribe or refuse to prescribe language rules as we…

In principle prescriptivism is about slowing language evolution, but in practice almost all of the prescriptive rules that people talk about (including opposing “comprised of”) are not based in any historical usage pattern. The prohibitions on ending a sentence with a preposition, “less” before a count noun, etc. are all made up out of thin air.

> The prohibitions on ending a sentence with a preposition, “less” before a count noun, etc. are all made up out of thin air.

Yes, as is not splitting infinitives. All nonsense. But "comprised of" is not nonsense. "Irregardless" is wrong". Etc. Not all prescriptions are nonsense.

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

#720

Post by cryptonector » Mon, May 08, 2023, 1:16 AM UTC

Aerbil313 wrote: post #542

cryptonector wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a tension between prescriptivism and descriptivism, and it has to do with the rate at which the language evolves. Prescriptivism resists language evolution. Decriptivism allows the language to evolve as fast as people wish to evolve it. Some rate of language change has to be accepted, but it needn't be as fast as if we rejected all prescriptivism. We each prescribe or refuse to prescribe language rules as we…

> Prescriptivism resists language evolution. Decriptivism allows the language to evolve as fast as people wish to evolve it. This is nonsense. Do you really believe language is subject to intentional human control? (Of course if a dictator comes and kills half a million people for things including changing language like it happened in my country, then it is, but this is a very rare exception.)

> Do you really believe language is subject to intentional human control?

Some, yes. You speak roughly the same language(s) as your parents, friends, teachers, etc. Their influence on how you speak and write -especially when you were young- is quite large.