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Archive 1 Archive 2

I disagree with your argument against the usage of the phrase "comprised of". The modern English language has MANY irregularities and if you were to compare the etymology of each word in the language with its current usage, you would be surprised to find many instances where the etymology does not correspond with the word in question. Also, just because a word or phrase is not necessary does not mean you have the right to change it. Furthermore, just because it is new does not mean it is worthless. Change can be just the necessity this language or system needs, though in moderation. While I find your information interesting and valuable to know, I fear that your changing of the many thousands of Wikipedia pages more of a personal vendetta against the phrase and a way to seek popularity. I feel that such methods are childish and should not be taken seriously. Consequently, I shall revert your change on my last edit and expect it to remain that way henceforth.
--JUtpadel

Rock on, JUtpadel.
--Ben Culture (talk) 21:24, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Agree with your deletion on Art Tatum's page. 65.11.114.119 (talk) 00:19, 20 February 2009 (UTC)kolef88 By the way, do you believe that it would be correct (and this does not refer to Tatum, but is just an example) to say "Popular standards comprise this artist's entire repertoire."  ?

Found your page from the history of Han-Han Dae Sajeon. Bravo, good sir/madam. I wish you the best in your striking down of "is comprised of".

Unfortunately, I edited the aforementioned article prior to seeing your user page, and I ended changing your "The dictionary has 16 volumes" to "The dictionary comprises 16 volumes".

In my opinion, "comprises" works better than "has" in this context. Let me know what you think. 114.182.92.178 (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Before rushing headlong into an argument that will most likely lead nowhere, I would just like to state that I am NOT a dedicated WP editor, and will most likely not reply to any response for some time.

However, in my travels, I happened to catch a glimpse of your crusade. Whilst reading through, I noticed this sentence in your explanation: "This argument says people who don't accept "comprised of" just haven't got the word yet."

If I were to start such a quest to rid the world of improper usages of particular words, it would be against the evils of the word "got". Used primarily by fourth graders and the lazy (myself included in common speech), there are so many equivalent words which provide a more accurate meaning: "received", "heard", and "been given" in this instance to name but a few.

If the now retired Mrs. Furmann of Cambridge, NY is out there, this post is dedicated to you!

By now perhaps you have realized that I simply tease, and hope you "got" as big a laugh from this as I did your page!

Rock on and keep it up dude!

ZyXHavocXyz (talk) 02:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you thank you thank you! I happened upon your edit of one page that I'd also edited, and I'm so glad to find I'm not the only one whose hairs stand on end upon encountering "comprised of". I am a word processor in a large law firm, and occasionally come upon the phrase, and always insist on fixing it, with a note that "the whole comprises its parts". I was frustrated in my search for definitive authority saying "this is wrong" with so many dictionaries and style guides having decided that it is somehow acceptable now; but for all the reasons you cite in your outstanding article here, I agree, it is wrong. If I had a barnstar, I'd give it to you. I second the above, "Rock on and keep it up dude!" --Davecampbell (talk) 02:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

You learn something new every day. I was wondering why you kept going back and undoing my edits. At first I was annoyed, now I understand. Nice job of explaining. (My other account was mech80 btw, I forgot what it was and created a new one, but just found it).

Mech4bg (talk) 03:38, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


I'm curious as to how to use comprise in the passive voice. I've always had a problem with this. For example, in the instance "The book comprises 20 chapters." how would you convert that to being passive? However kudos to you and your crusade, its a tad too prescriptivist for myself but congratulations on the efforts. -Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.15.35.176 (talk) 15:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Comprised Of

Thank you. I am enlightened.Fusion is the future (talk) 12:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Tomorrow is election day in the U.S. I'd like to cast my vote in favor of stomping out "comprised of". Maybe your efforts can influence the larger world of writing! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.119.251.163 (talk) 04:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

How would a quote or paraphrase containing "comprised of" be marked? With (sic)? Gosbear (talk) 04:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Paraphrase should not contain "comprised of".
Quotation may be edited by introducing Template:sic with parameter hide=yes (example sic/hide). This does not display "[sic]".
Read {{sic}} documentation for more information. --P64 (talk) 19:02, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

OK! Thanks! DocOfSoc (talk) 07:32, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

An interesting essay. KimChee (talk) 06:09, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
The Invisible Barnstar
For little corrections that do add up. KimChee (talk) 08:56, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks!

I will henceforth quit this untoward phrase, though I must admit that in some situations it sounds better to me. Thanks for the detailed and well-reasoned explanation.

By the way, minuscule is misspelled in your user page (as miniscule), another bugaboo expression. I could correct it, I suppose, but I think it would be more appropriate for you to do if you want to.Michaplot (talk) 08:06, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

  • Yet another grateful observer of your effort to extirpate "comprised of," I have always seen it as someone using needlessly complex diction to seem more erudite than they are. I have given up on "free reign" (no no no it is "free rein" as in letting a horse have its own way) since wiser heads than mine have declared that one to be beyond correction at this late date. Nay the less, there may still be hope for putting would-be users of "comprised of" back on the strait and narrow. Thank you. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 18:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I took offence to the edit initially, but having read your explanation I now agree with you. I hate that you're right, but you are right. And have made all of my writing, not just the Wikipedia-based stuff, that little bit more 'right', too. You have my begrudging thanks! AltitudeJunkie (talk) 23:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Just a note to say you have a deeply interesting (and convincing) argument on this. I'll never use "comprised of" again and intend to show this to my professors of English. --Cerulean Chicken (talk) 12:05, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The hairs on the back of my neck have always tingled when I have used "comprised of" in a sentence. Now I know why. Thanks. DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 10:52, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem with just burning off warts like "comprised of" and "and/or" is that often they signal a piece of text that needs rewriting. We can't easily automatically search for windy, disorganized prose but these markers are often associated with great slabs of low-grade text. It would also be useful to have a tool that detects sentences that are too long; some sentences here, if read aloud, would tax the lung capacity of an opera singer or peal diver. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:49, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

This is great that you have written this thoughtful essay about this topic. I have been using this phrase for a long time because I saw others using it, and I never thought much about it. Irregardless, that's no excuse, and I appreciate your taking the time to hunt down these usages and eliminate them. Leucosticte (talk) 02:10, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

"Irregardless"? Shouldn't that be "regardless"? Double sharp (talk) 08:44, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Lexicographical missionaries notwithstanding, there are times when the prosody of "irregardless" makes it le mot juste. Still, when using it, be prepared to fend off frothing hordes of troglodytes and Philistines who claim it ain't a word fit for proper parlour usage. Arr, 'tis a right petard of a word, but one I'd far rather be hoist by than the effete puerile "comprised of." __ Just plain Bill (talk) 00:45, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Comprising

In some instances, "comprised of" is best replaced with "comprising", NOT "composed of". For instance, your recent edit on the article Kiwicon. When talking about a group, "composed of" indicates the parts are in the group, whereas "comprising" indicates the group *is* the parts, which is more precise. ··gracefool☺ 00:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I second ··gracefool's position. "Comprising" is the standard term used in practically all the Patent Claims I have come across - the claims of a patent is the legally valid portion of the contract entered into between the inventor and the concerned government. It stands to reason that "comprising" is not just a normally correct usage, but the legally best usage at least in the very demanding context of crafting patent claims. You edited the article India's three stage nuclear power programme from "comprising of" to "consisting of". Am not sure that is warranted.

Could you care to elaborate on the difference between "comprising of" and "consisting of". It is not covered in your existing write-up. I have checked. Charminarin (talk) 13:29, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

For most purposes, "including" is synonymous with "comprising." In cases where "including of" is not correct standard English, neither is "comprising of." __ Just plain Bill (talk) 15:46, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. That clears my doubt, alright. Will avoid "comprising of" from now on. Also, I support the tenacity of Giraffedata in this project. It can be an inspiration for other users to take up passionate projects. But doubt whether the choice of the project is wise, in the larger time scale. After all, English itself didn't exist a 1000 years ago and had someone done the same thing at that time, we wouldn't be using English today. Charminarin (talk) 15:58, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
In response to what Gracefool stated above: Yes, with regard to this instance, I was considering using "composed of," but I used "comprised of" instead because of a source explaining the difference between using the two phrases. Flyer22 (talk) 23:40, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Composed of

BTW, the above is not considered proper use of the queens English, either. See [~Here~]. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 05:18, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Style guides.

In your article, you said:

I believe virtually all major English language newspapers have style guidelines that prohibit "comprised of," as do other edited publications.

I believe the same applies to "whilst". Would you care to comment on that?
--Ben Culture (talk) 21:32, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

One more kudo

Thanks for doing this. "Comprised of" drives me nuts, especially in Simon and Garfunkel's "Poem on the Underground Wall", a song I otherwise love. (The substitution I make when I sing it is "comprising", which is correct and still scans.) ~ CZeke (talk) 05:39, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Um, I just searched for those lyrics, and the few "sources" I looked at are in error. On the 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme they sang "comprising" to rhyme with "advertising." Some internet transcriber fat-fingered it, and the error has propagated. Your alteration fixes that IRL, so I fling a sizable quantity of kudos in your direction. __Just plain Bill (talk) 04:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Your reply excited me. I listened to every version of "Underground Wall" I could find -- studio, live, demo, all of it. I really wish you were remembering correctly, but you're not: Paul has never sung anything but "comprised of" in that spot. It's true that both versions can be found on lyrics sites, but rather than "comprised of" being a typo, "comprising" must be a correction. Someone out there had the same idea I did and decided to quietly fix Paul's grammar. Alas, the ear doesn't lie. ~ CZeke (talk) 05:56, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't have the record handy but in my memory it's distinctly a single word only comprising four letters. Have my ears been bowdlerising it all these years? —Tamfang (talk) 04:20, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you!

The Surreal Barnstar
Thank you for the English lesson! I enjoyed your user page immensely and I learned something useful, too. And by golly, I'm derned if that isn't exactly what Wikipedis is supposed to be all about. Belchfire-TALK 03:58, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Mentioned on Wikimania 2012

Just wanted to let you know that you were mentioned by name on Wikimania 2012, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Ng60B0mKU#t=47m50s Congradulations. :D • Jesse V.(talk) 21:03, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Comprises & Comprised

According to Fowler's Modern English Usage, "comprise is appropriate when what is in question is the content of the whole and include when it is the admission of presence of an item". Which means that with comprise, all the items are understood be in the list.

Now according to the way I see it, if a narrative is written the past tense, then for example I might use consisted of like this: "The temple consisted of four walls, a truss roof made of wood, with ceramic tiles, and a simple stone alter in the centre". If I wanted to use the verb comprise instead, then I might write "The temple comprises four walls, a truss roof made of wood, with ceramic tiles, and a simple stone alter in the centre", but the meaning here is that the temple still exists, which may not be the case. The sentence should be "The temple comprised four walls, a truss roof made of wood, with ceramic tiles, and a simple stone alter in the centre". I've never heard anyone suggest that comprised should be used in this sense. It sounds odd, and yet it should be legitimate. --Jason210 (talk) 12:29, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds odd to me, too, but so does "the temple consisted of"; perhaps because one thinks of a building as comprising (and consisting of) spaces rather than objects — or because one expects the things comprised to be of the same broad kind, whereas with the temple you have structural elements (walls and roof), decorative elements (tiles), and contents (the altar). —Tamfang (talk) 04:25, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Take this a step further

One thing that your article made clear to me is that a large number of native-English speakers aren't entirely sure what comprises actually means. My suggestion is to simplify your advice to reader - never use the word comprise. Reading through your article, I didn't see a single example where comprise is the best choice of words. "Includes", "is divided into", "contains", "composed of" covers every possible meaning. Much like the best advice for people unsure about "whom" is to tell them never to use it, the same goes for comprise. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Interesting

Interesting work regarding "comprised of"

Thanks for the information and edit on University of Georgia.

DMB112 (talk) 04:14, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

I didn't know about the incorrectness of "comprised of." Thank you for the correction on my Women's health in India page.Jasdeepsgill (talk) 19:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Comprised vs. Composed

Giraffedata, thank you for pointing out the incorrect usage of 'comprised' in the Immunolabeling article. It makes sense to keep it to your edited change of 'composed'; however, if 'comprised' is used in the correct context, I don't understand why it cannot be used on Wikipedia? Yes, I read your explanation on your page for further information. Either way, thank you for exchanging the word for the correct substitution, and I will be sure to watch out for the different meanings of these two words in the future. Jbmontgomery24 (talk) 11:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Giraffe doesn't say it can't be used, just to use it correctly. I, on the other hand, am of the view that the English language doesn't need this word for anything and that English is better off without it. Ego White Tray (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Ego White Tray, thank you for your additional opinions of the usage of comprised and clarification of Giraffedata's insights. As I stated previously, I will avoid the incorrect usage of this word on the article's main page. Thank you! Jbmontgomery24 (talk) 12:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Another thanks

Thanks for fixing my mistake of that special phrase on Gangs in the United States. I feel better knowing a little more now, and I will do my best to avoid it in the future. poroubalous (talk) 21:59, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Good idea

Seems like a good idea to me, I will likely follow your example in future edits. I would suggest that 'consists of' is probably a slightly better alternative than 'composed of', but that's probably personal preference. 'Comprise' is definitely compromised as to its current meaning. Eaglizard (talk) 17:35, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

another motive

I was influenced by Fowler's Modern English Usage, whose principles include: Preserve useful distinctions. The language is not improved when it loses a way to distinguish between senses. —Tamfang (talk) 04:32, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Interesting

Interesting work regarding "comprised of"

Thanks for the information and edit on University of Georgia.

DMB112 (talk) 04:14, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Comprised vs. composed

Giraffedata, thank you for pointing out the incorrect usage of 'comprised' in the Immunolabeling article. It makes sense to keep it to your edited change of 'composed'; however, if 'comprised' is used in the correct context, I don't understand why it cannot be used on Wikipedia? Yes, I read your explanation on your page for further information. Either way, thank you for exchanging the word for the correct substitution, and I will be sure to watch out for the different meanings of these two words in the future. Jbmontgomery24 (talk) 11:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Giraffe doesn't say it can't be used, just to use it correctly. I, on the other hand, am of the view that the English language doesn't need this word for anything and that English is better off without it. Ego White Tray (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Ego White Tray, thank you for your additional opinions of the usage of comprised and clarification of Giraffedata's insights. As I stated previously, I will avoid the incorrect usage of this word on the article's main page. Thank you! Jbmontgomery24 (talk) 12:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Another thanks

Thanks for fixing my mistake of that special phrase on Gangs in the United States. I feel better knowing a little more now, and I will do my best to avoid it in the future. poroubalous (talk) 21:59, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Good idea

Seems like a good idea to me, I will likely follow your example in future edits. I would suggest that 'consists of' is probably a slightly better alternative than 'composed of', but that's probably personal preference. 'Comprise' is definitely compromised as to its current meaning. Eaglizard (talk) 17:35, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Another motive

I was influenced by Fowler's Modern English Usage, whose principles include: Preserve useful distinctions. The language is not improved when it loses a way to distinguish between senses. —Tamfang (talk) 04:32, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Comprises and comprised

According to Fowler's Modern English Usage, "comprise is appropriate when what is in question is the content of the whole and include when it is the admission of presence of an item". Which means that with comprise, all the items are understood be in the list.

Now according to the way I see it, if a narrative is written the past tense, then for example I might use consisted of like this: "The temple consisted of four walls, a truss roof made of wood, with ceramic tiles, and a simple stone alter in the centre". If I wanted to use the verb comprise instead, then I might write "The temple comprises four walls, a truss roof made of wood, with ceramic tiles, and a simple stone alter in the centre", but the meaning here is that the temple still exists, which may not be the case. The sentence should be "The temple comprised four walls, a truss roof made of wood, with ceramic tiles, and a simple stone alter in the centre". I've never heard anyone suggest that comprised should be used in this sense. It sounds odd, and yet it should be legitimate. --Jason210 (talk) 12:29, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds odd to me, too, but so does "the temple consisted of"; perhaps because one thinks of a building as comprising (and consisting of) spaces rather than objects — or because one expects the things comprised to be of the same broad kind, whereas with the temple you have structural elements (walls and roof), decorative elements (tiles), and contents (the altar). —Tamfang (talk) 04:25, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree. "comprised" used in the past tense doesn't sound odd to me at all when things were actually comprised. I have written hundreds of times in Wikipedia that some ancient city comprised the territory of the present day cities of A, B, and C. But I don't think of a temple as comprising its structural elements, so would not write "comprised" here. I can, though, see a meaning that is properly expressed as "consisting of" in this sentence.
Bryan Henderson (talk) 00:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Composed of

BTW, the above is not considered proper use of the Queen's English, either. See [~Here~]. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 05:18, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I checked the reference. As far as I could tell, it says the opposite.
Bryan Henderson (talk) 00:20, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

GTA V

That edit you made to Grand Theft Auto V was comprised of great intentions. Thanks for it. ;) CR4ZE (talk) 05:12, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

On a side note, by the definition and etymology of "comprise", wouldn't a phrase like "the world comprises San Andreas [..]" be an acceptable alternative as well? CR4ZE (talk) 05:14, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I believe it would. But the nuance of "comprises" is that the things comprised have some significant existence independent of the comprehension described, and I don't see that in San Andreas (but I'm willing to believe that someone who knows GTA better than I do would see it). So I slightly prefer other wording. I frequently write that a diocese comprises certain cities or that an ancient province comprised certain modern ones. See the "Comprises/comprising" section under "Alternative phrasing." Bryan Henderson (talk) 05:32, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

"Many people do not accept 'comprised of' as a valid English phrase for any meaning"

"Many people do not accept 'comprised of' as a valid English phrase for any meaning."

Hi Giraffedata, I strongly urge you to add a caveat to the above sentence. "Comprised of", like many other words and terms, is a perfectly valid phrase in English as long as it is applied to a specific subset of the language wherein it is commonly employed and accepted. "Comprised" and various combinations thereof are foundational and common in patent law: in the case of patents they are used to describe a list of things which are essential to a certain invention, with the nuance that the said invention is not necessarily limited to the things one has described. I suggest you rephrase some of your opinions in this essay for clarity and, on a larger scale, philological rigor.  White Whirlwind  咨  02:41, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

But I don't know any subset of the language where the phrase is universally accepted. In the case of patent law, I have read many patents and I agree that "to comprise" is especially common there, but the uses I've seen use the traditional definition: the whole comprises the parts. E.g. a stool described as "a system comprising three vertical members and a horizontal platform ..." I don't doubt that there are also many patents that use the newer definition in which a system is comprised of its parts, but I'll bet they are a distinct minority and that plenty of patent lawyers call it an error. Lawyers are known for sticking with old terminology, even to the point that modern English speakers don't understand them. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:59, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

"Why not make it a bot and save people time?"

If these edits are going to be allowed to continue, that is Wikipedia endorses it, why not make it a bot and save a lot of people time? How many people wake up in the morning, and do the morning search "wikipedia comprised of" and push buttons for a while? Alrich44 (talk) 14:15, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I would personally support a bot that changes every instance of "comprised of" not in a quote to "composed of", but Wikipedia policy does not allow bots to do grammar edits. They fall into the category of context-sensitive edits, which require understanding the sentence more than a bot is trusted to do, meaning a bot could change things that shouldn't be changed. If automated grammar edits were allowed, there are probably a thousand things in the lists of misspellings, etc. that would be automated before "comprised of".
I know there are legions of wikignomes — people who wake up in the morning and start pushing buttons methodically to make technical changes like this throughout the encyclopedia. Their job is made easier by a variety of automation tools, but it's a pity it can't be automated more. The aforementioned list is of pages that consensus agrees should be fixed, so really ought to be empty.
Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 15:34, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Why a bot? Why not an edit filter? There is one to detect email addresses. False positives could be avoided with hide n sic, detecting code tags, captcha, user preference, etc. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 22:13, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
I read up on edit filters, and as far as I can tell, they have never been used for language issues. Policy appears to be that they are for vandalism and common technical errors. Surely if "comprised of" were an appropriate use for an edit filter, there are a thousand other even more appropriate misspellings and such that would have them first. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Village pump duscussion

There hasn't been a proper discussion of this for some time: Village pump (policy) # "comprised of" Primaler (talk) 22:33, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I glanced at the Village Pump discussion, but I have nothing to add there. I'm glad that you wrote this essay to explain your rationale. I was confused when I consulted my Merriam-Webster dictionary and it listed "compose" as a synonym of "comprise." It would seem that the company is keeping up with modern usage, whether correct or not. But your essay makes it clear why "comprise" is deprecated. This suits me, so carry on. Cheers, GentlemanGhost (converse) 04:33, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

off of

Kenaag (talk) 14:18, 4 February 2015 (UTC) I have problems with 

'off of'  ie 'East Street runs off of High Street'   is not just 'off' correct?

Wow

Giraffedata, you're my hero. 161.247.135.32 (talk) 16:58, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Inconsistency in motive

Hi! I approve of what you're doing, but you're wrong in one way or another. In one paragraph, you note that you would only consider it valid usage if 99% of the population considered it so (though you still wouldn't approve), but later, you mention that you don't do this for yourself, but instead... well, here's what you wrote:

Opposing:

  • "The prevalence argument does very little for me -- I don't see grammar as a majority rule thing. The prevalence would have to be about 99% for me to accept it as valid (though still unfortunate) usage. Bear in mind that a great many people write "could of", yet few people who study the issue argue this is a Wikipedia-worthy way to say "could have"."

Supporting:

  • "I am one of the people who consider "comprised of" poor English. But that's not why I edit it out; I don't edit Wikipedia for personal taste. The fact that lots of other people feel the same way is what makes it seem like a good edit to me."

These two things do not seem to jive to me.

Again, keep doing what you're doing (and thank you!), but change one of those two things. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asbdvklbsadfk (talk • contribs) 18:47, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

That's a good point. I'll have to think about how to clarify that. The fundamental distinction is that in one case, we're looking at whether one should use popularity of a phrase in deciding whether grammar allows it and on the other hand, we're talking about whether popularity of a grammar rule (considering that people do come up with different rules) makes it worth enforcing.
The fact that we're talking about a negative rule here (it's whether "comprised of" is allowed, not whether it is required) has something to do with popularity being more relevant on one side than the other too, but I'm not sure just how. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 19:46, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Contextual Use

Historical usage: Google Book's Ngram Viewer for "comprised of, composed of, consists of" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.239.152.162 (talk) 20:07, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I believe this is the source of one of the "other commentators" articles to which the essay refers. I found it fascinating and it was the source for my claim in the essay that the usage is new. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 19:56, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Valid uses of "comprise"

Hi! I think you should add a section about this -- when comprise is used correctly. (Comprise, not comprise of) This would also help people with their English.

e.g. On hill slopes, bedrock outcrops comprise half or more of the surfaces. Lehasa (talk) 00:09, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I believe that's in there. The first paragraph about the correctness issue gives the example, "The 9th district comprises all of Centerville and parts of Easton and Weston." and then there is a section under alternative phrasings dedicated to showing how to use "comprise" in a sentence that otherwise would have "comprised of". I know it doesn't cover every form of the word (tense, conjugation, number, etc), but it should be sufficient.Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Ambiguity and the possibility of including other things too without complete list.

If I were to say Borsch is comprised of beets, to me, that means that borsh likely includes other things. If I were to say Borsh includes beets, it makes me think that Borsch is a person and is actively making a choice to include people... If I were to say Borsch comprises beets, that leads me to believe that Borsch compromises beets, and with a double take I think that it means that beets are in a group called borsch... (I am not familiar with this usage)... Then Borsch is composed of beets or is a composition of beets, or has a composition of beets... that may lead me to believe that borsch is only beets.

Borsh is comprised of beets (seemed ok to me, but is now a bit grating after your article)
Borsh is composed of beets (now seems ok to me.... but it still seems to have an omission)
Borsh is made of beets (has an unidentified omission, and is wrong)
Borsh comprises beets (makes me think that all beets are borsh, which is wrong...)
Borsh composes beets (is wrong.. unless borsh gains sentience on Red Dwarf and comes back and starts arranging them)

What would you use to ensure the clarity of the possibility of including other ingredients? Composed of makes me think it is a complete list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.42.29 (talk) 03:19, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I think your interpretation of "comprised of" is fairly unique (one of the great reasons to avoid "comprised of" is that people do have varying definitions of it). According to the dictionary, in that construction, it means the same thing as "composed of", which I agree means you're listing every component. "borsch comprises beets" definitely doesn't mean all beets are borsch because "beets" just means at least two beets, but it does mean Borsch contains nothing but beets. I like the idea of reserving "includes" for an action, though I think it is well accepted just to show membership ("My cell phone plan includes 100 free text messages a month"). May I suggest "contains"? Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 20:13, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

compare with "possessed of"

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion. Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/franklin_d_roosevelt_4.html#ImV5LuvlaACDXfii.99

I very much doubt that Roosevelt was confused about who was doing the possessing and what they possessed.

In this grammatical construction "is possessed of" means possesses. Similarly "is comprised of" means the same as comprises. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.56.107.211 (talk) 18:03, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I haven't studied "possess". Off the top of my head, I would say Roosevelt's construction is a poor choice for a Wikipedia article (I don't plan to use it myself, anyway), and I'm sure the history of "possess" is quite different from the history of "comprise" and that there is no general grammatical rule that you can use "of" that way. If there is, maybe someone will come by and tell us the name of it.
It's an interesting comparison, though - one I haven't considered before. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 21:20, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps a losing battle..?

According to one online dictionary (freedictionary.com),

"...opposition to this usage is abating. In the 1960s, 53 percent of the Usage Panel found this usage unacceptable;
in 1996, only 35 percent objected."

And with reference to the "possessed of" section above, it's pleasant to know that at least the OP girafficionado is still possessed by the proper usage of grammar, no matter how sadly quixotic the battle is becoming.

In any event, my pet peeve is the mis-use of the apostrophe. Both "it's" vs "its" (does anyone in America even use the latter anymore?), as well as the ubiquitous usage of "CD's", "DVD's", and the abysmal "the 1990's" etc... I must attempt programing a bot to boldly seek out and destroy these apostrophical annoyances on Wikipedia and elsewhere!
As I am not too familiar with Wikipedia, any advice would be welcomed from folks here on how to do this possibly Herculean task (hopefully using someone else's CPU cycles, of course!).

--Aqking (talk) 18:25, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
We came across this discussion from https://medium.com/backchannel/meet-the-ultimate-wikignome-10508842caad
I'm not sure what battle you're talking about. If it's a battle to stop "comprised of" from being fully accepted under English grammar, I agree. I don't know if it will or not, but I can't imagine anyone, by editing Wikipedia or doing anything else, changing this fate. (The reason I don't think it's inevitable is that "comprised of" has been in use for at least a few hundred years and hasn't taken over yet). Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 21:23, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

More thanks

I was also confused about this usage. More importantly, your project and the impeccable reasoning behind it encourage me to correct grammatical errors whenever I'm inspired to. Until now, reading not just about you but the other editors engaged on similar activity, I had despaired of the prospects of maintaining communities which practised good English usage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kemp231252 (talk • contribs) 00:26, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks

I didn't know about the incorrectness of "comprised of." Thank you for the correction on my Women's health in India page.Jasdeepsgill (talk) 19:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

As another writer guilty of misusing the phrase "comprised of," I thank you for your tireless effort and excellent essay. It reminds me of the day I realized my usage of "for all intensive purposes"—for years, in school essays, without correction—was actually my mishearing of "intents and purposes," which I finally read in a book to my horror. :) DavidHarkness (talk) 00:24, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

"Comprised of" tolerance

My only argument against this is that the usage of "comprised of" is so pervasive in the English language today. In fact, I think that of all the times I've ever heard or read the word "comprise" or it’s derivatives, it has nearly always been used with "of".

As much as I dislike the fact that grammar and spelling issues that I consider to be incorrect are incorporated into the English language every year (and get off my lawn!), the fact is that this is how it works. I think "comprised of" should be moved from "discouraged" into "accepted" now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jfren484 (talk • contribs) 15:28, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

But there are still many, many people who not only don't use "comprise" to mean "compose" but don't like seeing anyone else do it either. I know because I hear from them all the time. My inbox has been overflowing since the recent publicity with thanks and encouragement from these people. I think something moves into the "accepted" category when it's so popular there's no way to stop it, which is clearly not the case with "comprised of" on Wikipedia, or when it's one of those either-or things where what used to be required now sounds funny. "Comprised of" doesn't fall into that category either. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 07:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That vs Which

From your article:

"concentrate on the articles which don't have such owners, which are the vast majority."

You may wish to reconsider your usage here ;)

http://www.kentlaw.edu/academics/lrw/grinker/LwtaThat_Versus_Which.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.25.160.123 (talk) 16:55, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Good point. Thanks. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 07:54, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Totally demolished by Guardian

What a card you is!!
Seriously, dry up!

67.208.235.205 (talk) 01:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)


word Pete5677 (talk) 11:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Consider yourself told.

Might be time to do something else: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/05/why-wikipedias-grammar-vigilante-is-wrong Pete5677 (talk) 18:00, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

My 0.05 centers here. Your arguments, sir, don't hold the water. Some of them seem to be plain incorrect. In particular, many newspapers use "comprised of". I commented all of the arguments here: http://searchivarius.org/blog/there-nothing-wrong-comprised It's deplorable that you waste time on fixing things not broken, while many actually broken (and hard to understand) pages need your edits. Please, consider fixing them. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Srchvrs (talk • contribs) 22:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
word. Pete5677 (talk) 11:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Alternative phrasing example

I would like to suggest an alternative example for the second-last entry under "comprises/comprising": This case was meant to illustrate the use of "comprises" for uncountable objects, but the given example actually has ten (countable) acres) being the components of the campus. Perhaps it would be a clearer case if the example were "The campus comprises the woodland and marsh on the North side of the lake"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nnlee (talk • contribs) 23:14, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

You're right. I knew that when I wrote it, and was just hoping to get away with it! Your example, though, suffers from a similar possible misconstruction, because it lists two things. I think I'll go with "The campus comprises the all the woodland on the North side of the lake". Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 04:17, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Confused

I see this phrase so often that I was not even aware that it was considered to be incorrect by some. I checked my dictionaries and all listed it as correct in this context. I applaud your attempts, but I should not have the stamina to keep up with it myself and wonder if it is an example in action of the meaning of a word/phrase changing with time?

I have no desire to seem picky, but the very first phrase on the user page seemed - Inarticulate? i.e. "The phrase "comprised of" is a poor wording in Wikipedia. Should that not be something more akin to "comprised of" is a poor choice of wording in Wikipedia. Possibly even "comprised of" is considered poor phrasing in Wikipedia.

I am sure a case can be made for the current form being correct under certain circumstances, but it does not read smoothly or even "feel right" (I am a native English speaker) as I understand Giraffedata is also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.95.175 (talk) 00:17, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

This is definitely a case of language changing over time. Given the trend in the last 50 years, in another generation or two there may well be no one left who considers it incorrect. Until then ...
I have never liked the "a poor wording" sentence myself. But I couldn't see anything actually incorrect about it or come up with anything that sounded less awkward. I'm pretty sure I considered "poor phrasing" and found something wrong with it, but I can't now, so I will change it to that. Thanks for commenting. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 00:48, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Take this a step further

One thing that your article made clear to me is that a large number of native-English speakers aren't entirely sure what comprises actually means. My suggestion is to simplify your advice to reader - never use the word comprise. Reading through your article, I didn't see a single example where comprise is the best choice of words. "Includes", "is divided into", "contains", "composed of" covers every possible meaning. Much like the best advice for people unsure about "whom" is to tell them never to use it, the same goes for comprise. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I almost agree that comprise is unnecessary altogether, but I think I've used comprise in places where it is slightly better than anything else I could think of. But I wouldn't miss the word if it were outlawed.
However, I don't think it's the case that people "aren't entirely sure" what comprises actually means. They're 100% wrong or 100% right. The 100% wrong people don't even know they're using the word "comprise". They're using the whole phrase "comprised of", which they are sure is OK. These people never use the word "comprise" in any other form. When told that "comprised of" is always wrong, then they either start using "comprise" correctly or stop using it altogether.
The same goes for the much smaller group of people who use the phrases "comprising of" and "comprises of".
So I'm saying it isn't like "effect" and "affect", which I read is the most commonly searched for thing on grammar web sites.
Bryan Henderson (talk) 00:19, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

"They're using the whole phrase "comprised of", which they are sure is OK." That's because it *is* OK! GeneCallahan (talk) 00:43, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

US English

There are all sorts of linguistic errors on Wikipedia. "Impact" should not be used as a verb. "Also is" is also incorrect usage. Of course, I'm using educated English English as my reference point, but, after all, English is the language of England. I'm sure this American man is happy to use countless Americanisms in his written English. Don't get me started on "could care less". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.75.49 (talk) 21:42, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

This Brian Henderson -- note the correct spelling of Brian; it seems Brian's mother was illiterate, unfortunately -- also writes "the math" in his article, instead of the correct word "maths". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.75.49 (talk) 21:47, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

If I understand the irony or sarcasm or whatever this is, I think it is claiming a bunch of differences between English of the US and England. Of these, the only one I recognize is "math" vs "maths". Can anyone confirm any of the others, either in usage or acceptance? Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 08:02, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Bryan, I cannot begin to list how many differences I have found. Personally the most astounding one I have come across is the position of a full stop (period) OUTSIDE brackets or speech marks (quotes) being correct in America, while it should be INSIDE to have the correct form in the UK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.95.175 (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I meant how many of the differences suggested above are really differences. I know there are plenty of other differences not in this list. Wikipedia has a nice article on them somewhere. I tried to read it once, and it hurt my brain because there are many differences that also vary within each country or two variations are accepted in one country but only one in the other country, etc.
Interesting point: In Wikipedia, the logical placement of the period (or comma) - the UK one - is mandated everywhere. Also, I've heard some people think it's legal in the US anyway. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 01:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
That is fascinating to read Bryan. I am only now beginning to read "house styles" for various places and occasionally I am appalled at what they "require" as compared to what is considered by most as correct grammar or style. Perhaps you might know the answer to whether double hyphens are considered correct now? I have been seeing things like "hyphenated--word" even on the BBC and it still feels wrong to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.68.95.175 (talk) 04:44, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
I've never even seen double hyphens where a hyphen belongs. I read a double hyphen as a dash, and it's generally accepted for that in a medium that doesn't have dashes (or dashes are too inconvenient). Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 04:32, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Language changes

I find it curious you have this rather specific fixation and are seemingly convinced you're correct. Since language evolves with time we must incorporate these changes to reflect the reality of usage. If we didn't the "bastardisation of the Queen's English" also known as American English, or "American" if you're from the deep south wouldn't have been allowed. Spacepostman (talk) 21:32, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

It's not as specific as it seems. I feel the same way about dozens of popular English phrasings. I chose this particular one more or less arbitrarily to turn into a Wikipedia project. Also, while it may seem like a fixation if everything you know about me is this project, I actually do and think lots of other things; I am actually quite easily distracted from editing or thinking about editing "comprised of" out of Wikipedia. FWIW I confirm that I'm convinced I'm right (I wouldn't say "correct" because I don't think rules of English are rigorous enough for something to be correct or incorrect).
I know well the argument that language changes and therefore we should not care about "comprised of"; it is mentioned in the article.
Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 21:11, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
By the way, the argument that "language changes" has never been justification for anarchy. Since the inception of the written word, the notion of correct usage, and the right/responsibility to enforce it, has been part of language. (Case in point: "American" has never been a language anywhere in Anglophonia. Yes, some people use that word to describe the majority language of the US, but even in that country they're hooted down. This is a perfect example of common usage that hasn't become correct just because it's common.)
The consensus of literate anglophones is that "comprised of" is hokey, awkward, illogical, historically unsupported, and deleterious to our language. It makes English weaker and less expressive, which is the fate that standards seek to protect us from. G-Man's "rather specific fixation" is both legal and necessary. Laodah (talk) 06:28, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Again, this is just made up! Users of "comprised" in this sense include Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and Herman Melville! Or perhaps they were all illiterate! GeneCallahan (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 00:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
Nope. Just wrong. Laodah 07:30, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

German Articel

http://www.welt.de/kultur/article137283402/47-000-mal-geaenderter-Wikipedia-Fehler-ist-keiner.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.225.56.155 (talk) 21:48, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

How do you say "awesome!!" in German? Laodah 05:18, 21 February 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laodah (talk • contribs)

Energetic pedantry

I wish Giraffedata well in his campaign to eradicate the locution "comprised of" from Wikipedia. Nevertheless, in keeping with that old saying about glass houses, I offer some perspective. Within a few paragraphs of reading Giraffedata's User:Giraffedata/comprised of page on the topic, I found two different types of usage errors.

To wit:

The phrase apparently originated as a confusion of "to comprise" and "to be composed of", which mean about the same thing, as in "the 9th district is composed of ..." There is a traditional saying to help people remember these two sound-alike words: "The whole comprises the parts; the parts compose the whole."

  1. When punctuating quoted terms or phrases, "small punctuation" such as commas should go within the quotation marks, at least in U.S. English writing. As we can see, in Giraffedata's writing, the comma appears, erroneously, after the quotation mark. So, given that Giraffedata appears to use U.S. English (for example, he uses the word "aggrandize," not "aggrandise," in his Talk article), it appears that Giraffedata has run afoul of this rule. [1] My suggestion is that Giraffedata fix these errors in all of his writing.
  2. The accepted usage of the ellipsis is that there should be four dots if an ellipsis occurs at the end of a sentence. Sadly, Giraffedata uses only three dots in the comparable situation. [2] Therefore the same suggestion is given here as it was for the comma errors in item 1 above.

References

  1. ^ "Quotation Marks". Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  2. ^ "The Ellipsis". Retrieved 8 February 2015.

I do not pretend to write with perfect grammar and usage all of the time. I'm merely pointing out to Giraffedata that if he is going to focus so tirelessly on correcting other people's writing on this one relatively minor point of English usage, he should do them the courtesy of avoiding errors of similar importance in his own. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scribalweb (talk • contribs) 02:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Well first of all, I want to suggest that the glass houses doctrine doesn't apply here, since I'm not afraid of, say, someone coming along and correcting my grammar as I correct theirs. I am thus not vulnerable as a glass house resident would be. In fact, I should point out that several times this past week, some kind soul corrected my grammar here, and a few years back, a much better grammarian than I offered a couple of dozen usage criticisms that were all valid and all appreciated.
Wikipedia's manual of style (which doesn't cover much, but does cover this) says to use the logical UK style of punctuation in quotes and parentheses regardless of the dialect affinity of the article. As I understand it, I don't have to follow MOS on my user page, but I think it's a good idea, so I do.
I've never heard of the four dots, and apparently none of the other people who have gone over this essay with a fine-tooth comb noticed it either, so maybe it's not that simple. I'll certainly have a look, though. It makes sense. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 01:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
I've read this comment several times and I still don't get it. First of all, all usage issues aren't equal. To respond to an objection to "comprised of" by throwing up a punctuation point is tantamount to claiming that the mechanic didn't actually fix your car because he replaced the starter but didn't touch up the scratches in the rear mudguard. Further, punctuation is native to standard; the rules governing Global English vary dramatically from those governing American English. But "comprised of" is wrong everywhere. The two issues are nowhere near in the same league.
Also, G doesn't correct all usage on Wikipedia, only "comprised of". So unless you can show that he doesn't understand that point of grammar, you've got no case.
The "glass houses" issue is most obscure of all. There's no glass here. As G hasn't used "comprised of" in his essay, or on this talk page, he's fully bonded to pitch all the stones he wants.
This house is made of brick. Best puff elsewhere. Laodah 05:38, 21 February 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laodah (talk • contribs)

If you get a half hour free sometime...t

You maybe want to look up 'moot'. Gasala — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gasala (talk • contribs) 07:27, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Language log

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3136

rebuttal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.147.149 (talk) 10:23, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

  • Your rebuttal to Pullum's argument misses the point, and your conclusion that "in the spirit of comprised of, Bob might also be the property" suggests you don't understand it. The example shows that the same word can have opposite meanings, regardless of grammatical constructions. "Comprised of" is the passive form of "comprise" and therefore is inherently the opposite of each other in terms of argument relations - but since "comprised of" in fact has the same argument construction as "comprises", that means that the verb comprises simply has two senses/uses, one that is accusative and one that is unaccusative - "comprised of" is the passive of the unaccusative form. This means that we can say that a. "12 men comprise the group" and b. "the group comprises 12 men", and using the passive of a. would be to say that the we can say that "the group is comprised of 12 men" - the passive of b. would be that "the twelve men are comprised of/by the group". All of these would be grammatically correct English, but the passive of b is clearly the least common (if it occurs at all).·maunus · snunɐɯ· 02:23, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Peeving, prescriptivist poppycock

Are you aware of the essay Counterfeit cultural capital by U Penn linguistics professor Mark Liberman? He argues that using “comprised of” is just fine. Among other things, he refers to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Have you consulted it? --ChPietsch (talk) 10:34, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't recall seeing that essay before, but I looked at it and it is the same as all the others: it proves that "comprised of" is in common use, which is not a controversial fact. It is clear to anyone who has read a dictionary recently (and I'm fully versed in all of them in re "comprise"). It also shows it has been used for a long time, and that some respectable people have used it. Any claim that "comprised of" is not popular is poppycock.
Indeed, a rule that "comprised of" should not be used is prescriptivist grammar and someone who studies or follows that rule is a prescriptivist, and peeves many people. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 20:22, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
Yes, because prescriptivists are people who think their arbitrary preferences overrule other people's arbitrary preferences.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 01:32, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Nope, that is not what a prescriptivist is. And I'm not sure you know what grammar is either. Grammar is a set of rules for producing language. Some grammars produce language as actually spoken, and these are called descriptive grammars. Descriptivist linguists are scientists who study descriptive grammar, i.e. how people talk. Other grammars produce language as someone thinks it ought to be spoken, for any of a variety of reasons and in any of a variety of circumstances. Prescriptivist linguists are scientists who study these grammars. As scientists, they don't make value judgments on them; they don't tell people how they should talk, unless those people are opting to follow a particular prescriptive grammar and want to know what that grammar requires.
Everyone use some prescriptive grammar or other when talking and when accepting others' speech, and unfortunately they are often different. Even more unfortunately, some people get angry and hateful over the differences rather than seek compromise or just let it be. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 00:50, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
Key phrase in the above "just let it be". Wikipedia does not need to follow your particular prescriptive grammar. The idea that grammar is "a set of rules" is very mid-20th century, by the way. The idea that "prescriptive grammar" is an actual form of grammatical theory, and that there can be such a thing as a "prescriptivist linguist" is very 19th century. The idea that everyone use some prescriptive grammar or other when talking to people is simply wrong.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 01:28, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
Except that we're using different "its". I meant let the difference of opinion be; you mean let text be, i.e. don't edit. I didn't say grammar is a set of rules as an idea; I said it as a definition. It's a definition I got from a linguistics textbook and that is very useful. You're obviously using a different definition, so it's not surprising that you disagree with everything I've said about "grammar." I probably might too, if I were using the word the way you do. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Userbox

For any interested users I created this userbox:

This user uses the phrase "comprised of" in article space.

·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:48, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

'Comprised of' in quotation.

Dear 'Giraffedata',
I noticed that you applied an edit here and I can see from your recent contributions that your intent was genuinely to improve articles containing comprised of.
However, I wanted to make sure you were aware that, as editors, we are not supposed to alter the text contained in quotes, as per MOS:QUOTES. In essence, we must not modify or improve the language in quotes, since the resulting text would therefore no longer conform to the original voice of the person being quoted. In this particular case, it is an extract from a published book, not an off the cuff, verbal statement.
Therefore, I am hopeful you will agree to revert the subject edit, at your convenience; thank you for your consideration and, also, for your many contributions to our encyclopaedia.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk) 18:53, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk) 23:09, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Google Ngram supports your efforts

I came across this interesting tool that you may not be aware of. It tracks the changes in usage in books over time of the phrases consists of and comprised of. Google Ngram Thought you'd enjoy.TechnoTalk (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:01, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

That tool is the basis for the claims in the essay that "comprised of" has been opposed for a very long time and that its acceptability is recent. It's also the basis of the research by Jonathon Owen mentioned under "other commentators."
But I don't think it necessarily supports my efforts. Those who oppose my efforts say that if a phrase has been popular for 10 years, it's officially part of the language and anyone who doesn't like it can go to Hell. The data show that "comprised of" has been quite popular for many decades now. Not as popular as not comprised of, but I'm not sure that matters.
I did a study of Wikipedia in particular once in which I found that Wikipedia editors today prefer to write "consists of" and "composed of" rather than "comprised of" by a wide margin. (But the number preferring "comprised of" is still significant).
Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 02:41, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

CBS Evening News, 1 May 2015

Great human-interest blurb on Bryan at the end of the news tonight. Fun to watch him do his thing. Laodah 02:19, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


Sunday Morning!

Be sure to add Sunday Morning to your "Media coverage" section. I would add an entry, but I'm concerned about what format to use, so I'll leave this up to you.
Secarrie (talk) 16:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

spammer

This guy is a major Twitter spammer and needs to be stopped. His spam is no different than the tcot and other unwanted messages I receive. "The worst vice is advice." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.79.198 (talk) 14:29, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I wonder who "this guy" is. Back in March, I heard about a twitter bot that was responding to all tweets that contained the phrase "comprised of" with advice (very gentle advice, for what it's worth) not to use the phrase. Maybe that bot is still active and the poster above thinks I run it? I checked it out back then and found the bot's user page specifically said it was not affiliated with my work, though it was inspired by it. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:08, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

/r/BadLinguistics, for what it's worth

The "comprised of" issue has been brought up on reddit.com/r/BadLinguistics twice, for what it's worth: [2] [3] --Hirsutism (talk) 16:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

A matter of taste

I taught English for years. This is a matter of taste, not proper or improper usage. While I prefer other ways of expressing the same meaning, "comprised of" is legitimate, basically serving as a synonym for "composed of." Pretending otherwise is quite pretentious. Hallward's Ghost (Kevin) (My talkpage) 02:09, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Though there are plenty of people who say this is not a matter of taste, and one might call them pretentious, this essay is really about use of "comprised of" in Wikipedia, not whether there is some fundamental objective improperness about it. When I edit Wikipedia, I consider this usage a matter of taste. We have to cater to the tastes of the many readers of an article, not the taste of the author, and we well know that a great many Wikipedia readers' taste runs to cringing at this phrase. Essentially no reader has that kind of reaction to "composed of", so to the extent that they are synonyms, it's pretty obvious what makes the optimal Wikipedia article. I don't know how you taught English, but the most liberal style guides I've seen teach it more or less like that: it's probably not wrong, but avoid it anyway because some of your readers think it is. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 15:44, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
I think your contention that "a great many Wikipedians" agree with your personal distaste for the phrase is not provable. The fact that several people at this talkpage have expressed support for your somewhat eccentric campaign only shows that a very small sliver--those that happened upon this essay--agree with you. And as there is essentially no difference in meaning between "composed of" and "comprised of", your assertion that "essentially no reader" dislikes "composed of" is not provable as well. Hallward's Ghost (Kevin) (My talkpage) 18:02, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
I think it's quite provable, though I don't know of anyone who has bothered to do so. Same with proving that there aren't a great many Wikipedians who find "comprised of" distasteful. It wouldn't be very profitable to seek hard proof one way or the other because there's so much softer evidence available and so little to lose from simply assuming the affirmative.
For evidence that the English speaking world abounds with people who find "comprised of" distasteful, look at all the style guides, house style manuals, and essays like mine that cover the issue. Did the authors of these all just make it up? And did they influence no one? In addition to the dozens of people speaking in support of keeping "comprised of" out of Wikipedia on this and my own talk page, outnumbering those who speak in opposition, I have over a hundred emails encouraging my work. And every major dictionary mentions the opposition to the "compose" definition of "comprise". Dictionaries don't recognize fringe opinions - if they did, every third definition would have qualifications on it. Webster's even says opponents of comprise=compose are surprisingly tenacious as people usually accept usage changes more easily. Finally, at least four times I know of, people have asked for opinions on the matter in various Wikipedia fora and in each case heard from people who thought "comprised of" is wrong. So they seem to be all around.
Now, from the other side, I have not seen a scintilla of evidence of this kind or any other that people find "composed of" ungrammatical or distasteful.
Therefore, in the absence of any hard proof, it just makes sense to go with the weight of the evidence and say the safe route is to avoid "comprised of". Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 20:23, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
Regarding the claim by Hallward's Ghost "I think your contention that 'a great many Wikipedians' agree with your personal distaste for the phrase is not provable", I must respectfully disagree. All that it would take is for a single opponent of Giraffedata's efforts to post an RfC. I predict that there would be a large number of participants and a clear consensus that Giraffedata should continue. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:38, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Comprised of vandalism

Here's some interesting news: There is a person vandalizing Wikipedia by inserting "comprised of" randomly into articles. At least I assume it's just one vandal; maybe it's a movement. I've happened across it three times in the past month; there must be more. The vandal creates a Wikipedia account, uses it to insert "comprised of" into a bunch of random articles, and then vanishes. In one case, he just changed "composed of" to "comprised of", which could conceivably not even be vandalism. In others, though, he inserted it arbitrarily, even breaking syntax. In one case, there were bogus edit summaries. In all the ones I've seen, someone noticed and was able to revert the vandalism. Where that doesn't happen, my normal Wikignoming will find these phrases and likely convert the sentence to something not as good as the original (because of my lesser knowledge of the subject matter). Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 20:34, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Admire your dedication

While "comprised of" isn't a phrase that gives me chills to read in print, I can think of several that do -- and I just wanted to say that I admire the time you've put into researching your argument and implementing it. Regardless of whether the phrase is correct, I'm glad to know I just joined a community of people with dedication like this. With people like you working to keep Wikipedia going strong, maybe these predictions won't come true: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/ 2ReinreB2 (talk) 04:03, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. And thanks for the reference to the 2013 article about the future of Wikipedia. In spite of its headline, "The Decline of Wikipedia", it actually predicts only that Wikipedia's growth will stop and it won't get any better. The reason is that Wikipedia would have to expand its volunteer community, for example to include people interested and knowledgeable in areas of human knowledge that aren't covered well today, and may not be able to do so. So dedication of existing editors isn't really going to help prevent that stagnation, and could actually promote it.
The article says one reason Wikipedia has trouble attracting new contributors is the hostility. I can understand that - there are probably people who wouldn't stick around if they encountered the hostility I sometimes do for even these trivial contributions.
It says another reason is Wikipedia's bureaucracy. I don't know what the author is talking about there, because Wikipedia has the opposite of bureaucracy: anarchy. My work would be a lot easier if there were bureaucracy, because there would be a rule, no matter how arbitrary or misguided, saying exactly what "comprise" is supposed to mean in a Wikipedia article, and there wouldn't be anything to fight about.
Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 02:34, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Considering this my true introduction to Wikipedia

I won't lie, seeing your edit irked me. I had researched a lot about the Spanish painted frog, and it was one of the very few pages I had mostly written by myself. Changing "comprised of" seemed like such a pedantic edit, and I'm a bit ashamed to admit but I was a little upset that my edit was no longer "current". I know that's not how Wikipedia works, and the articles belong to everyone, but I can't deny my emotions.

Regardless of how I feel about "comprised of" (because to be honest I don't exactly share in your passionate hate of the phrase), I thank you for the welcome to the odd little world that is Wikipedia. One day I hope to be as passionate about something as you are.

EmilioDiegoGarcia (talk) 12:50, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia can be a miserable place if you can't find a way past feeling ownership or pride in your contributions so that you feel offended if someone changes one. There was a time when there was a warning next to the "save page" button that reminded newcomers of the Third Pillar of Wikipedia and advised that if you don't like your work being "mercilessly edited", Wikipedia is not the place for you. (But actually, if you don't like even grammar corrections, you'd be pretty unhappy in traditional publishing too, because everyone has an editor — and it's even worse in that case because your name is actually on the article as edited).
For the record, I don't have a passionate hate of "comprised of". I spend relatively little time and energy editing it and never get emotional about it. I might be more passionate than many about grammar and writing style, but "comprised of" is among probably hundreds of common phrasings that I think are imperfect English. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


Comprised of Germanic troops

You are certainly wasting your time (although I liked most of you changes on the Germanic Peoples page).

Until you have the academic authority to change the English language ---- According to Oxford's Dictionary

comprise verb [WITH OBJ. ] consist of; be made up of: the country comprises twenty states.

-make up or constitute (a whole): this single breed comprises 50 per cent of the Swiss cattle population | (be comprised of) documents are comprised of words.

Along said line: Most of Constantine's army was comprised of Germanic troops. That statement is acceptable in every way according to one of the foremost authorities on the English language. Sure it's disputed a bit but it's SO trivial. Why would a person with your writing ability waste your efforts on this? Don't you have a subject domain of interest aside from semantics?

It's like changing happy to glad all across Wikipedia. What's the purpose? ---especially when you are aware from what I have read that the utilization mentioned above is satisfactory. Comprises of <<< yeah I get that as this misuse annoys me too. Anyway - your other edits were great. I'd rather see an expert writer like you make constructive changes to shorten sentences or improve clarity. Thereto, I respectfully request that you refrain from changing "comprised of" to "composed of" on my editorial work when it is correct according to Oxford's Dictionary standards. That said, I welcome your editorial expertise otherwise. My recommendation to you is that you read John Searle's Intentionality and stop this deconstructionist Derridian obsession.Obenritter (talk) 08:20, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

(The write actually inserted the above talk into the essay itself; I moved it here) Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 01:19, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

The fact that dictionaries describe the usage is covered in the essay. It also points out that no dictionary tells us what is acceptable.
There is a significant difference between "comprised of" and "happy": Large numbers of Wikipedia readers believe "comprised of" is poor and even incorrect English; nobody believes "happy" is.
Many people over the years have suggested and even requested that I not remove "comprised of" from Wikipedia articles, but many more have encouraged me to do so, and the reasons to continue are more valid than the ones to stop, so I intend to continue. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 01:26, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for that very detailed explanation. Somehow I missed this in the first 33 years of my Anglophone life. Donama (talk) 03:41, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

I've been reading and writing English for longer than that, paying as close attention to optimal word use as I can, and I still discover on a regular basis that I've been doing it wrong. I was fortunate to find "comprise" when I was in college. It suddenly occurred to me that I was hearing "comprise" used in opposite ways and that didn't make sense, so I looked it up. And I haven't used it backwards since.
When I started removing the backward uses of comprise from Wikipedia, I was surprised to get a lot of questions and strident objections from people who had never been told of the issue. That's when I wrote this essay, and started using it as my edit summary, and those questions and objections mostly ceased. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 04:32, 25 November 2015 (UTC)


Languagetool inclusion

Hi Giraffedata, I read an article about your pet peeve and it inspired a new rule I wrote for Languagetool. Thanks and keep up the good work. http://languagetool-user-forum.2306527.n4.nabble.com/New-Rule-td4642153.html --WikiTryHardDieHard (talk) 19:54, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

That's a good idea. You might also catch the less common "comprises of" and "comprising of" and maybe even the more complex "comprised primarily of", etc. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 18:08, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Media coverage

This work has recently received notable media coverage and commentary.

The original article by McMillen cites a Wikimania 2012 presentation by Maryana Pinchuk and Steven Walling, which Walling linked in a comment, where they laud Giraffedata and this effort beginning at 48:16. I share their enthusiasm! Emw (talk) 13:50, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

More...

Above seven added – Brianhe (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Toe-may-toe / toe-mah-toe

Regarding your "correction"... a quick Google search shows that many sources, including the major dictionaries, state that I used the term correctly, just as others have been since the 15th century. But I'm not picky, so I won't be changing it back. I'm just sayin'... maybe you should re-think this a little. Cheers. - theWOLFchild 03:47, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I've thought it through thoroughly over the course of at least eight years, in discussion with over a hundred people, and put the results in the essay for which this is the talk page. That essay does include the fact that many people use the term the way you did and that dictionaries list that usage.
The same Google search surely also shows that many people object to that usage, and have been doing so since the 15th century.
By the way, "toe-may-toe toe-mah-toe" is most properly a reference to distinction between social classes, not equivalence of wording. The phrase comes from a movie in which two people notice that they use different language in a way that demonstrates that they are from different social classes, so maybe shouldn't associate with each other. I've never seen any claim that usage of "comprise" evidences social class. Indeed, for every bow-tied grammarian saying you can't write "comprised of", there is a lawyer writing it. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
I thought the "toe-may-toe toe-mah-toe" thing was about US and UK English, not social class. Everyone here in the UK says "toe-mah-toe", and I had assumed that all Americans say "toe-may-toe". Are there Americans who say "toe-mah-toe"? What social class are they? Maproom (talk) 16:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
P.S. Keep up the good work with "comprised of"!
Well the thing is, it's almost the same thing. In times past, as American English diverged from British English, the educated upper class in the US spoke more like English people and the common Americans spoke the newer stuff. I think that correlation is entirely gone today and nobody in the US who isn't making a joke says toe-mah-toe, but in the early part of the 20th century, you could tell someone's level in society by pronunciations such as that. My 1973 American Heritage dictionary lists toe-mah-toe as a 2nd pronunciation. Both characters in the 1937 movie are American. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 23:59, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

An excellent piece

Thank you for an excellent piece on a use of language that is, from my point of view, just plain incorrect. Maybe we could do something similar for other disputed constructs, such as "off of".

For the record, one silly person did try to tell me that both "comprised of" and "off of" are valid purely by virtue of their having been first used 200 or 400 years ago. I pointed out that people murdered in Biblical times, but this doesn't mean murder is no longer a crime. And moreover, that even if "off of" is accepted anywhere then it's certainly an informal usage and one that should be avoided on Wikipedia.

I've also had somebody revert a correction of mine, albeit on the Layton wiki: I corrected "amount of puzzles" to "number of puzzles". I never quite established why the person did it. Have any of the people who reverted your corrections given explanations (be they vaguely plausible ones or pure nonsense)? I would be interested to hear what kinds of things they said. — Smjg (talk) 17:24, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

It's kind of a stretch to use murder as an analogy for bad writing, but even sticking to writing (and speaking), it's easy to find analogies that should convince anyone that "it was first used 400 years ago" is not a valid argument. "Could of" has certainly been used for that long and yet there are vanishlingly few people who would argue one shouldn't avoid "could of". As you probably saw in the essay, I think the most powerful counter to the "people have been doing this for a long time" argument is that in all that time, those people haven't managed to convince the world it's good writing (schoolteachers and style guides have consistently opposed it the entire time), so there must be something really wrong with it.
Many times, people have explained at least superficially why they reverted one of my technical corrections. It's been an interesting study in psychology.
I think copy editors have a big problem in that people confuse the task of optimizing the text with that of rendering judgment on the person who wrote it. Arguing that writing something a certain way is forgivable is not the same as arguing that it's written the way it should be. And that probably explains the "amount of puzzles" reversion. The reverter is rejecting what he sees as an attack on his intelligence because he's heard "amount of <count noun>" and it feels right to him, and even if it isn't technically right, he's not a bad person and should be forgiven for this venial transgression.
I have encountered this many times. People revert a comprised of -> composed of edit with the explanation "It wasn't wrong." When I ask if "composed of" is wrong, the answer is no. When I ask why they changed something that wasn't wrong, the conversation nearly always ends there. I'm pretty sure I understand, though: the person is repelling an attack on his intelligence. That's not an appropriate use of the Wikipedia editing privilege, but I'm sure it feels right to some people.
One way I know this is the psychology at work is that when I started, I used as an edit summary "fix comprised of". There were many reversions. Then someone told me, "I almost reverted because of your edit summary, because I don't believe 'comprised of' is broken, but since 'composed of' isn't wrong either, I refrained." Based on that, I started using just "comprised of" as the edit summary and the reversions dropped off significantly. The edit was no longer seen as an attack, so there was no need to retaliate.
Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 21:36, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Sterling Example

Thanks, Brian, for legitimizing the improvement of suboptimal writing. I'm toying with the idea of starting my own crusade against "in terms of," which to my ear is even more egregious than "comprised of." Probably get myself incivility-banned within the first month. Wish me luck! Rskurat (talk) 17:01, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

That would probably have more pushback than "comprised of", since there aren't legions of editors saying it's a straight up grammatical error, like "comprised of". But I think you could be pretty successful nonetheless. That's in the same class with User:laodah's "based around". And also "as well as" to mean simply "and" (I even see it at the end of lists). Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 20:35, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
Hi, User:Rskurat! There's no doubt that the well of poor English runs deep. There are dozens of outright wrong constructs on their way to being pinocchioed into filched acceptance. ("To pour over a problem", "to beg the question" when it means "to prompt or give rise to the question", "full speed ahead", "a cogent response" when the writer means "a coherent response"; you could literally fill an encyclopedia with these things.)
And that's just the straight-up bad English. If you get into bad style, that's whole 'nother war. Bryan's right that style questions engender vastly more whiplash than outright grammatical or logical inconsistencies in our service. Or to put it another way: WP is full of werewolves who are prepared to argue, at length and through endless reversions, that what is demonstrably and clearly technically wrong, is in fact "right". Imagine the fun if you tried to upgrade technically-correct but weak prose to something better. You know, like competent editors do a hundred times a day in the real world. One swoons to envision.
All of which is to say, welcome aboard, gnome-boy! Let us together strive to hurl back the forces of ignorance. Laodah 02:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi Bryan
There's a nice congruence between the effort you put into concentrating on this (to some) weird, pernickety project, and the effort you devote here to explaining why you do it, as well as considering counter-arguments. That gives your project a lot of credit. I completely support your project: I'd love to see this phrase banished from Wikipedia, except in the rare cases where:

  1. It is exactly the right phrase to use (e.g. patent law, where it's an accepted technical term of art, as pointed out above) or;
  2. In the context, it's the least-worst alternative way to construct the sentence.

I suspect that these cases are extremely rare ones (do you come across cases where there's no better alternative? Interested).
I have my own reasons, which I think your essay doesn't emphasise (though it hints at them). (This could be, of course, because they're my reasons and you don't agree with them). My reasons go like this: don't use the phrase "comprised of" because:

  • It's ugly
  • It's unnecessary: there are plenty of better, simpler, more readable alternatives
  • It's not "encyclopaedic": it just looks more formal and "encyclopaedia-y" than the alternatives
  • It's a tainting phrase.

What do I mean by a tainting phrase? Let's take your insightful comment a bit further up - about editing construed as a kind of joust to decide who is more intelligent - as a starting point:
"When I ask why [the reverting editor] changed something that wasn't wrong, the conversation nearly always ends there. I'm pretty sure I understand, though: the person is repelling an attack on his intelligence. That's not an appropriate use of the Wikipedia editing privilege, but I'm sure it feels right to some people."
I would make this point even more strongly. Changing "comprised of" attracts much more resistance than, for example, fixing typos or replacing "could of" with "could have". This is because, in the former case, you're doing more than correcting a mistake: you're also removing an actual, intended meaning. In the conversation, you never quite get to the point of working out what this meaning (the bone of contention) actually is, simply because it's completely external to the subject-matter. The meaning in question is in fact the meta-meaning "I, Wikipedia editor, am sophisticated, educated and encyclopaedic enough to write 'The Board is comprised of 11 members' rather than 'There are 11 members on the Board'". And you've gone and ruined it!
So does what you're doing amount to "rendering judgment" on the original writer? I really like another of your comments, which (with your permission) I might put up on my userpage, and (without or without your permission) I'm going to bear in mind constantly when editing:

"I think copy editors have a big problem in that people confuse the task of optimizing the text with that of rendering judgment on the person who wrote it."

And the problem is that tainting phrases such as "comprised of..." make it impossible for a copy-editor to stay safely within the limits of rendering judgment on what is written (how can you optimise it without doing that?), without straying into at least appearing to render judgment on the writer as well. This is because the phrase contributes less to the clarity of the writing than to a kind of hidden, baked-in WP:PEACOCK pointing to the person who wrote it - a baked-in element that, while hidden (at least until someone tries to remove it, when its occult importance becomes extremely clear), is immediately apparent, however indistinctly, to the reader. Some readers might be put off by the formal, authoritative-sounding phraseology. Others might not know what the phrase means. Others still might guess what it means, but be less than convinced that they've guessed right, because "comprised" is such an "impressive-looking" word. Myself, I react by turning my bullshit-dar to max power: because in my experience, writing peppered with tainting phrases often has minimal content, clarity or organisation.

That's one reason for calling such phrases tainting: they (possibly unjustly) taint the rest of the piece of writing they occur in, by evoking an unintended reaction in readers. Whatever form the precise reaction takes, it's a reaction to a kind of supercargo of authority, introduced into the writing by the writer at the expense of clarity and accessibility.

The second reason is even more depressing. I should ask: in writing this diatribe, am I "rendering judgment" on writers who use these phrases? Yes, I am, and I'm not necessarily always doing it fairly. I suspect that a large majority of writers who use this kind of phrase have no intention of lording it over their readers, preening their own feathers, showing off. They do it simply because they want to write well: and someone, probably someone in authority (abuse of this kind of phrase is pretty co-extensive with the possession of power, especially power beyond competence, as George Orwell noted, among others) told them - explicitly or by usage - that writing like this makes you look good. It doesn't: it makes you look like someone who's trying to look good, and failing. And it taints the authority of whatever other (possibly really good) writing you put in, making people less likely to believe you.

So I think the best argument against the use of this phrase (and many others like it) completely sidesteps questions of permitted or established usage, as well as questions of elitism vs tolerance for different usages. (This last is what that Guardian writer gets spectacularly wrong, because he fails to see that pretentious writing encapsulates its own - failed - attempt at an elitist assertion of superiority).

The question is simply pragmatic: don't use this phrase, because - rightly or wrongly - it makes you look bad. Rather than being "correct" or "incorrect", it's simply one to avoid. Ssptwriter (talk) 17:26, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that insight into another side of the question of whether or not to write "comprised of".
One thing I'd like to clarify about the rendering judgment angle is that a copy edit can't help but render judgment on the writer who chose some phrasing other than the copy editor's. But that judgment usually is not the purpose of the copy edit; it's just a side effect.
I'd like to point out that avoiding the phrase because it makes you look bad is a good reason not to use it in something like a blog or signed essay, but not relevant to a Wikipedia edit. A Wikipedia editor should not give any thought to how a phrasing makes him look - generating sentiment toward the editor is not an appropriate use of the Wikipedia editing privilege. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 21:59, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Can you make some more obvious pointer toward this?

I spent a good long time editing an article of some personal and scientific importance, only to find a mysterious little notation that said, "comprised of" and saying that 19 characters were removed. Wikipedia allows you to summarize your changes. Consider, in the future, rather than being such a busy little beaver, being a little more considerate to the community by putting some kind of context on where the change was made. I'm sure that Wikipedia has some way of figuring this out. However, comparing entries gives me the wikitext editor, and I was using the WYSIWYG (because I don't want to have to learn the markup just to write an article) and I can't figure out what you did. What I can determine, though, is that removing or altering "comprised of" isn't going to generate a 19 character net loss. So, now I'm irritated that your little language fetish has altered something that I spent considerably longer and more thought on than you did, when you freely admit here that you know less about the articles that you're doing this to, merely because of a stylistic preference.

Also, it comes off as hostilely pedantic. After all, don't bite the new people. Drkirienko (talk) 03:33, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

You really must not consider edits, especially copy edits, to be biting you. You will not be happy on Wikipedia if you take offense any time someone edits something you wrote. Wikipedia is all about constant editing. Wikignomes (editors who scour the encyclopedia for minor technical issues and correct them almost invisibly) work to save other editors from having to expend effort in those areas, not to criticize the other editors for not doing so. There simply isn't anything in this kind of edit worthy of getting irritated over.
It is convention on Wikipedia to summarize a style edit with a link to a page that explains the style issue. And as it's a summary of the edit, it is not appropriate to describe the edit at a word level. That is what the diff function is for. I understand that you don't like the presentation of the information by the diff function, but I believe it is more reasonable for you to read a diff than for me to write a detailed description of every edit. Only very few editors would appreciate such a description; you're actually the first one I've encountered who objects to reading diffs.
While I'm sure you know more about the article content than I, you may know much less than me about English grammar, and I assure you that whatever my edit was, it changed only the grammar, so any difference in understanding of the subject matter is irrelevant.
For the record, you're mistaken about the fetish. There isn't one.
I often correct a bunch of other tiny issues while I'm in the neighborhood, not worth bringing to anyone's attention in an edit summary (indeed, you'll find many copy editors summarize all their edits simply as "copy edit" or "grammar"); that may account for the net 19 character loss. But it's also possible for simply rewording one sentence that originally used "comprised of" to reduce the sentence size that much. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 21:24, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

One more kudo

Thanks for doing this. "Comprised of" drives me nuts, especially in Simon and Garfunkel's "Poem on the Underground Wall", a song I otherwise love. (The substitution I make when I sing it is "comprising", which is correct and still scans.) ~ CZeke (talk) 05:39, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Um, I just searched for those lyrics, and the few "sources" I looked at are in error. On the 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme they sang "comprising" to rhyme with "advertising." Some internet transcriber fat-fingered it, and the error has propagated. Your alteration fixes that IRL, so I fling a sizable quantity of kudos in your direction. __Just plain Bill (talk) 04:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Your reply excited me. I listened to every version of "Underground Wall" I could find -- studio, live, demo, all of it. I really wish you were remembering correctly, but you're not: Paul has never sung anything but "comprised of" in that spot. It's true that both versions can be found on lyrics sites, but rather than "comprised of" being a typo, "comprising" must be a correction. Someone out there had the same idea I did and decided to quietly fix Paul's grammar. Alas, the ear doesn't lie. ~ CZeke (talk) 05:56, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, my ear has been lying to me all these years. I'm reminded of an experiment where a syllable was cut out of taped speech and replaced with a cough, and listeners consistently did not hear the cough but filled in the missing syllable. In defense of my ear, the syllable in question is more obscure than most of the song. —Tamfang (talk) 21:16, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Words meaning their opposites

There are many examples in English of words being their own opposites. See Auto-antonym and "Fun with words: Contronyms"..

It may be illogical, but the English language evolves that way. Take, for example, "nice". The obsolete usage, according to Merriam-Webster, is "wanton, dissolute". Think about that in the context of a phrase like "nice guys finish last". In that context, "nice" is taken to mean virtuous, respectable, or kind. The word has now evolved to mean the exact opposite of its earlier usage. "Comprised of" has evolved similarly, although I'll be the first to admit that having "comprises" and "is comprised of" mean the same thing is a bit odd. In the end, though, it's for the editors at large to come to an agreement on which variant to use, not for a single user to make a unilateral decision. If you haven't already done so, I'd suggest taking this up on one of the grammar-related pages, like WikiProject Grammar. That way, if debates come up in the future, you can point to the consensus rather than to a page you made yourself. – RobinHood70 talk 21:06, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that words change and can even change to opposites. While "comprise" may be evolving in that same general direction, it's still fundamentally different from nice, as evidenced by the fact that every major English dictionary still lists the original "include" meaning as not only current, but primary. So while the illogicality of a word having two opposite meanings isn't a reason not to use "nice" to mean nice, it's still a good reason to avoid using "comprise" to mean compose.
There isn't a page to come to a consensus on whether "comprised of" is welcome in Wikipedia. WikiProject Grammar lists as its 6th goal, "Not to argue about styles of grammar or correct spelling", so that's not it. I think the page that comes closest is Wikipedia Manual Of Style, but the few times I know someone has tried to get a ruling on "comprised of" there, the answer was that the Manual Of Style is not for grammar and usage issues; it's for technical things like punctuation. A Wikipedia article gets its grammar the same place it gets its facts: from the editing public. An editor who finds a sentence he thinks could read better in a different construction, like one who finds a fact he thinks is wrong, just changes it. If others disagree, they change it back (or preferably, look for a compromise). When a dispute arises, there are procedures to deal with that. Considering that each editor must use his own judgment in making these edits, a personal essay is the appropriate reference for the editor to use to explain his edit. No one should take such an essay as authority, of course. Other editors should read it and then reach and apply their own conclusions.
Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 04:04, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough. While I have no particular objection to the use of "comprised of", if it makes you feel better, I have my own pet peeve which has entered acceptable usage, which I despise: "damn", as in, "I just fixed that 'damn' thing." UGH! A thing cannot be "damn", damn it, it can only be "damned". Apparently, nobody cares about this anymore, though. – RobinHood70 talk 19:33, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
You have only one of those? I probably have dozens. "Damn" as an adjective wasn't one, but I guess it will be now. Here are two similar ones I got from my brother, similar in that they were created by the same kind of mishearing, don't make any sense, and are acceptable usage now: "ice tea" and "ice cream". It's supposed to be "iced", as in the process used to make these items before refrigerators existed. You certainly don't make ice tea by steeping ice, or make a cream of ice.
It was not easy to choose "comprised of" as the one pet peeve in which to specialize on Wikipedia, but a big part of the decision is that there is still huge support for reserving "comprise" for its traditional meaning, which we can't say about "ice cream", and probably "damn." I am actually quite bothered by "due to" used as a conjunction, and still change it whenever I run across it in Wikipedia, but some research indicated grammarians have all but given up on that one, and I'd be pretty much out there all by myself. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 22:55, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Interesting

I just noticed one of your edits. Very interesting. What drives me crazy is "is home to" instead of "is the location of". Literally. Cheers. Magnolia677 (talk) 01:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I guess I haven't noticed that one. It's not in the same category as "is comprised of," though, unless the category is "poor language that bothers people," in which case there are thousands of these. Things in the same vein with "comprised of" would be "could care less" and "steep learning curve" (things that mean the opposite of what the speaker intends) and "could of" and "for all intensive purposes" (misheard things that are gibberish) and "utilize" and "due to the fact that" (deliberately making a sentence more complex to make it sound more intelligent). The "home to" thing sounds more in league with "as well as" used where "and" belongs.
Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:41, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm sometimes tempted to campaign against "the fact that". Maybe I could adapt your bot? — I'd say "home to" is in league with "[date] saw [event]". —Tamfang (talk) 21:05, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
I wonder if you have a good alternative to "is home to", because though I haven't given in yet, I am frequently tempted to use it in "comprised of" corrections. A common phrasing in Wikipedia is, "Neighborhood X is comprised of Victorian houses and small shops." This is doubly wrong because 1) the writer means it's composed of those things; and 2) it's not. A neighborhood is much more than the buildings within its boundaries. So I want to say the neighborhood is home to those buildings, but ... yeah. I usually end up with "contains" if I don't just give up and say "consists of". Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:32, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion

Hi. Recently, I noticed your contribution to an article that I've been working on, and was actually quite surprised (with English being my second language, I never knew that ″comprised of″ is poor wording). The problem is this - while you have effectively substituted ″comprised of″ in the context that it was used in, it appears that you did not proof-read the finished sentence, resulting in the original version of ″These are only comprised of 1 team each″ becoming ″These is only one of each of these teams″, with the first word: ″These″ now clearly being used incorrectly. The edit can be viewed here [4]. Of course, mistakes like that happen very often, but since your intent is to improve the grammatical correctness of articles on Wikipedia, you should make sure to proof-read the edits before submitting them. Regards, VB00 (talk) 14:11, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Certainly that's a bad edit, VB00, and I'm sure Bryan would not disagree. If you look at his work overall (some 60000 edits), you'll see that he makes relatively few of this type. To error is human. Best —jameslucas (" " / +) 17:28, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. I've accepted the fact that occasionally I will do something dumb like this no matter how much I don't want to. I do proofread, but I look right at the sentence before submitting, and my brain tells me it says what I thought I wrote, even though it doesn't. (My most common one is trying to replace "is comprised of" with "comprises", but ending up with "is comprises"). But the great thing about Wikipedia is that typos like this really don't matter much. Even if there weren't someone watching the article, who can easily correct the mistake, the very next reader would also see the problem and could fix it. If you search for plain typographical errors (the kind where it's obvious to everyone that it's wrong) in Wikipedia, you hardly find any, and it's not because no one is making any. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 18:04, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Typo in your essay

I'm pretty sure "and ultimated blocked the editor when he refused" is a typo for "and ultimately blocked the editor when he refused". This is in the "Reaction to the project" section. Overall, really nice. Thanks for your tireless work in defense of logic! Larry Doolittle (talk) 06:11, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. I have corrected it. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 16:25, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

RfC on handling of quotations

I have started a Request for Comments relating to the practice of editing the phrase "comprised of" in Wikipedia. It concerns the use of a hidden {{sic}} tag in the article source, described in this essay in the section Quotations, which appears to be disputed.

The RfC is here: Template_talk:Sic#RfC:_Does_tagging_comprised_of_help_or_harm_Wikipedia?.

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 15:45, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Music example is ungrammatical

In your sentence:

'"the album is composed of live recordings" or "the band is composed of former blues singers" should evoke the same thoughts as "she composed the song on a ukulele".'

- you couldn't say that The Well-Tempered Clavier was composed of Bach. That's ungrammatical. I am not an expert on grammar so I couldn't explain what is ungrammatical about it - but you just never use composed as in musical composition in a passive form like that.

I'm not commenting on your wider point. I would use "comprised of" myself but would probably not edit war with someone who reverted my edit :). But in a musical context I can imagine reverting it if you can confuse it with the musical sense of composition. Neither of your examples could confuse the reader however as live recordings can't compose and a band is not a composition, and it is hard to think of an example where it would be confusing.

So this is just a minor point, but in your examples it is definitely not the musical sense of composition and you can never say "composed of" using composed in the sense of musical composition.

They evoke the sense of "constituted of" rather than of "composing".

You could say that "X composed a piece of music by blending together live recordings of owl hoots" (say). A composition doesn't have to be musical notes on the page. But even then

"The piece of music was composed of owl hoots"

has a different meaning from

"The piece of music was composed by putting together owl hoots"

The first is just describing what makes up the piece of music, the second describes the activity of composing it. It's like the difference between

"The Well Tempered Clavier is composed of musical notes"

and

"The Well Tempered Clavier was composed by Bach by writing musical notes on paper"

The first example there is mildly confusing, slight dissonance because of the two meanings of "composed" and you'd probably choose a variant such as

"The Well Tempered Clavier is made up of musical notes"

Or some such. Robert Walker (talk) 10:39, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that composing music has a greater meaning than just the bare dictionary sense of putting notes together because writing music isn't that mechanical. But I think the underlying sense of putting notes together is still there, and anyone who doesn't recognize that is missing some of what it means to write music. And maybe what it means to assemble an album or a band. "She composed the song on a ukulele" should evoke lots of thoughts in addition to, but not instead of, the thought of putting notes together.
But you're right - one has to be careful in a musical context to avoid confusion or dissonance with the use of compose. (As long as it's followed by "of", it seems to me the reader would go directly past the "writing music" sense to the "constituted of" sense, but maybe not). Just yesterday, I encountered an article in which an album was "comprised of" songs that, in the very same sentence, were "composed" in some way. I opted for some other wording for "composed of" (I don't remember - "made up of", maybe) because of that.
As for the ungrammatical "The Well Tempered Clavier was composed of Bach", it isn't actually ungrammatical, it just doesn't say what you mean. A better example of the point is that you wouldn't say, "Wilson composed the album while walking on the beach one day", because constructing an album isn't called "composing" like constructing a song is. Even though the "putting together" thought is there in both.
By the way, here's another example of compose having a greater meaning, yet still retaining the fundamental "putting together" meaning: In a printing operation in the old days, there were people known as "composers" who spent their days "composing", and they weren't writing music. They were putting lead type slugs together, one letter at a time, to form a page of text. Still, you could probably say the pressman's sandwich was composed of bread, peanut butter, and jelly without confusing anyone. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 16:22, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! x2

Learned something :D Also, smart of you to include (in your script) something that checks for articles you've recently edited to avoid interactions with people who are protective of their articles. originalmesshow u doin that busta rhyme? 04:28, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

"is comprised of" is accepted usage

(This is cross-posted from Talk:Verfasserlexikon - the Verfassserlexikon is a German literary encyclopedia.)

The trouble with the position of User:Giraffedata and User:Redditaddict69 is firstly, that no linguist nor any professional writer/editor regards a linguistic form as incorrect because of a supposed illogicality. The only criterion of correctness is usage. A usage that is widespread amongst competent users of a particular register (and which they don't themselves correct) is de facto correct. I don't accept that "English language critics" (i.e. prescriptive grammarians, all of whom, notice, are self-appointed) should be the arbiters of what is and is not an acceptable usage. Have a look at Attention Grammar Pedants, the English Language Isn’t Logical by Lynne Murphy (Professor of Linguistics at Sussex).

Secondly, the method used to establish the illogicality in this case is faintly ludicrous (or perhaps just naive). It runs thus: '"to comprise" is defined as "to consist of", therefore, "comprised of" means "consist of of"' (directly quoted from User:Redditaddict69). The writer seems unaware that if you substitute one verb for another when the two verbs have different semantics, of course you are likely to produce nonsense.

  • [things contained - subject] comprise [container - object]
  • [container - subject] consists of [things contained - object]

You can't substitute these verbs for each other because they have exactly opposite semantic structures. "Comprise" can have a passive, "consist" can't. The whole suggested replacement process shows a lack of linguistic senstivity (and a failure to analyse) - surely unforgivable in anyone who has the nerve to go round telling other people their usage is wrong.

You can easily see how daft it is, if you try another substitution. "Comprise" has a synonym "make up" (explicitly listed as such in the OED):

  • [individual components - subject] make up [final whole - object]

If the procedure cited by these purists has any validity, it would be illogical to say

  • [final whole - now the subject in a passive construction] is made up of [individual components - now the object]

So, where's the crusade against "is made up of"?!

But is the usage "is comprised of" actually used by competent writers of English? The answer is unambiguously yes. If you search Google Books, which contains only published works written (mostly) by professional writers and copy-edited by professional editors, it finds more than 3.5 million examples of "is comprised of".

Given that we are here talking about an encyclopedia, it's worth searching for "encyclopedia is comprised of" - over 300 works are cited. I do not care how right User:Giraffedata and User:Redditaddict69 think they are, I don't accept that they know more about good English writing than 300+ professional authors and editors. The use of "is comprised of" is not just an acceptable way to describe how a encyclopedia is put together, it is one of the standard ways!

This crusade against "is comprised of" is based on ignorance and executed with arrogance, not to mention a basic flouting of WP etiquette. It's an utterly pointless waste of time for all concerned.--Pfold (talk) 17:05, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

@Pfold: – I think you're the one that should be reported for edit warring if you change that back again. I only reworded that after I expanded the article and reworded the entire thing. You're changing it back for no reason, a violation of MOS:VAR, as you said yourself. There's nothing to revert since I removed that sentence entirely. Redditaddict69 16:57, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Well, while we're at it: the latest edit says "encompasses", but look at "encyclopedia encompasses" in Google Books and you will see that it is always followed not by the structural components of the book but the subject areas covered. So the use of "encompasses" here is out of keeping with its normal use when applied to encyclopedias. That makes the reversion a perfectly legitimate edit, even if it wasn't before. --Pfold (talk) 17:00, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
A few corrections: I, and the page for which this is the talk page, don't say "comprised of" is incorrect. I always say it's pointless to argue over what is correct, because there is no written specification of English or arbitrating authority. The page does say that some people argue that "comprised of" is incorrect, which is undeniable (it's been said on either this or my user talk page many times). The page and I also don't use "consists of of" in arguing that "comprised of" is illogical. In fact, I wouldn't say the phrase "comprised of" is illogical per se - it makes perfect sense if comprise can mean compose. The page argues that it's illogical for comprise to mean two opposite things - contain and compose. And even in the crazy world of English auto-antonyms, there is no other like this. The "make up" example is a circular argument, because "make up" is exactly that disputed secondary definition ("compose", "make up", "constitute") -- which is acknowledged by most dictionaries, by the way.
Examples that show "comprised of" is commonly accepted are a red herring, because nobody is suggesting otherwise. The page says exactly that, in fact. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 01:51, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Comprised of

Hi Giraffedata This crusade, that is the only way describe it, is slightly fascistic, and totally irrational. The Oxford English dictionary describes comprised of as consisting off, and vice versa, and it is entirely natural to substitute one for another. You have changed several British English I have written. Please do not do it again. scope_creep (talk) 11:49, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

The essay for which this is the talk page explains why the fact that the dictionary defines the word that way is irrelevant to this issue.
People don't own articles on Wikipedia, even when they have written them, and do not have the right to tell other editors not to change them, so it would be wrong of me to modify my editing according to your request. The fact is that my opinion of the optimal wording for the articles in question carries every bit as much weight as yours. And you don't even seem to disagree with my wording - you say it's perfectly natural to substitute one for another, which is what I did. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I came across an instance of your work

I'm convinced. Do you want other people to keep an eye open for instances of "comprised of", and fix them? Do you want us to use a particular edit summary, if we do so?

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 02:51, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

I do appreciate it when others fix these, because although it is not really hard for me take care of it entirely myself, there is a small problem with that making it look like this point of grammar is just my idiosyncrasy. I occasionally encounter people who have never heard of this issue and tell me they think I made it up or at least that I am the only person in the world who cares. It's helpful for those people to see evidence that that is not that case. (In fact, there must be millions of English readers who were taught or otherwise learned that "comprised of" is poor writing and would rather not read it in Wikipedia).
One thing to keep in mind, though, if you go looking for the phrase in Wikipedia is that you have to have a tolerance for conflict, because a significant fraction of the instances you find will be ones where I already changed it to something else and an article owner changed it back. When they do this, they seem to be making a political statement, and will not take kindly to someone else messing with their article or questioning their grammar. Of course you'll also find plenty of instances where there won't be any opposition - ones that have been added recently to Wikipedia, or where someone independently added "comprised of" to an article after I happened to remove a different one.
There are others who do work on "comprised of" and they usually use the same edit summary I do - just a link to my essay, which explains in as much detail as anyone can stand, the purpose of the edit.
If you do a search and destroy like I do, be sure to use insource:"comprised of" as the search so you can avoid all the articles with the phrase in quotations, which greatly outnumber those with it outside quotations.
(See User:Giraffedata/comprised of#Quotations).

Semi-automation

I don't know how widespread the problem is, but it seems that you have studied it extensively and know how people write using it. It strikes me that some of the changes can be made systematic and semi-automatic by being incorporated in one of my scripts (either the formatting script or English variant script. If you think it's worthwhile, you could help by preparing a conversion table (input –>output) of all the permutations/combinations of the verb–preposition (eg comprise of, comprising of) can be taken into account and converted when I or other editors use my script. That way, the reach is considerably enhanced, freeing you to concentrate on other areas that you are interested in. Regards, -- Ohc ¡digame! 09:08, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

As much as I would like to be relieved of some of the more mechanical edits, I don't see much of an opportunity here. First, these edits would be of a rather different character from all the others in these scripts today, which conform to their titles: formatting issues and consistent regional spelling. I wonder if users of the scripts would appreciate them being polluted with word usage issues. If I understand how your scripts work, various editors set up their accounts so that any time they edit anything, the script looks for things that need fixing and propose fixes that the editor can make just by clicking a button. Is that right? So the usefulness of adding a rule depends upon how likely the problem is to appear in a random article, which I think is vanishingly small for the "comprise" misuses.
But if you think it would be an appropriate extension of your scripts, we could start with an easy one: "comprises of" -> "consists of". This one is essentially always a good edit and it's one I don't often search for, so there are lots that need fixing at any moment. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 23:25, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
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