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First of all, he seems like a perfectly happy person, so I’m assuming saying he’s “sad” is attacking him personally because you don’t agree with him.. which is

First of all, he seems like a perfectly happy person, so I’m assuming saying he’s “sad” is attacking him personally because you don’t agree with him.. which is sad. Second, comprised already means “consists of”. Unlike your example, heard, which is the past tense if hear. So “comprised of” essentially means “consists of of” which is nonsense. Hence why it’s better to say “comprises” rather than “comprised of”.

kazinator 3y ago
Meaning is not macro replacement. If we suppose that "comprised" means "consists of", it does not follow that "comprised of" means "consists of of". (Setting aside, for a moment, that "comprised" does not mean "consists of"). Just like "make" possibly meaning "create" doesn't imply that "make up" can turn into "create up". To comprise means for something to contain certain components (usually with a nuance that the list of components is complete). Since at least the 18th century, it has been used in a reverse way: components can comprise the whole. Charles Dickens used it in this reverse sense. It is from this reverse usage that the participial adjective arises: if components can comprise the whole, the whole is comprised of those components. Both the reverse usage and the adverb have been disputed, but are now hundreds of years old. The popularity of the participial adjective has wildly increased in the last half century. There is a logical reason behind the the reversal of comprise that doesn't seem to get discussed. Because comprise has a completeness nuance, it is actually a form of equivalence: if X comprises of parts A, B and C, it means it is equal to those parts. There is nothing else to X but A, B and C. Since equivalance commutes, comprise is expected to follow suit: A, B and C comprise X. Comprise really means something like "exactly covers" or "corresponds to in an exhaustive whole/part relationship". All that has happened is that we have lifted the restriction that the left operand of comprise must be the aggregate, and the right operand be the individual items. > attacking him personally because you don’t agree with him I was going to write "pseudo-intellectual twit on a lunatic correction rampage", but I went with "sad" to be nice.
- crazydoggers 3y ago
  If you look up the word “comprised” in multiple dictionaries they all define it including “consists of”, “composed of”, “made up of” etc. So right off the bat your argument is flawed. Perhaps you would like to define it the way you did, and perhaps some set of people you converse with may, but the point of a dictionary is so we can define words in ways we all agree on so we all understand each other. As we have learned from Gödel, language is complete, but not consistent. Unlike math. So trying to argue about “comprise” using a more consistent logical framework of A, B, C, commutation, etc. is already a losing battle. I could argue for a long time, having been both an English major, and a software engineer but the short of it is that words are tools. Don’t use a hammer for a screw. Sure you’re allowed to, and the language can evolve into everyone using a hammer on a screw, but the language losses something in the process. There have always been, and always will be editors and people like the Wikipedia editor who help proscribe the usage of words to convey the correct and precise meaning to as many people as possible. The goal is to allow as many people as possible to have as precise an understanding of what is being communicated, with as much precision as is possible for something the must be complete but can’t be consistent. An example can be seen, even on this very page, of English learners, non-native speakers, thankful for what some call “pedantry”, so they can understand what is being said. Without that, language can often become siloed, with the evolution of pidgins, and creoles etc, with the consequence that fewer and fewer people understand each other. Imagine your grandmother trying to read and understand half of what is written on Twitter and TikTok. For content that matters, and that includes Wikipedia, and published texts, editors who work for those publishers are the invisible people behind the scenes helping us all understand eachother. You can scoff at “pseudo-intellectual twits”, but people often fail to realize that the world is often a better, richer place for intellectuals. The people who spend time on things most people find pedantic, often end up inventing things like transistors, understanding quantum physics, etc. Software engineers often appreciate those types of results, but ignore or sweep away the results that lead to richer arts, language and cultural heritage.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    I'm looking at Merriam-Webster; it doesn't corroborate your claim; it says that "comprise" is defined as "be made up of". Nothing about "comprised" meaning "made up of". Since Merriam-Webster's "comprise" means "be made up of", it follows that the past tense "comprised" means "was made up of". > the language losses something in the process Not all trends in usage are good and useful, and it's probably good to nip them in the bud. This one happened too long ago to fix now. You cannot wish that single words be returned to 1750. If you want to return to the English of 1750, you have to want all of it, including giving back "sensitivity" and using "sensibility". With comprise being used commutatively, what exactly have we lost? It is this: Suppose that comprise is used with a pair of words, and you don't know what either of then mean. Out of any context, you hear " ...the froznitch comprises the gronfuzzle ...". If comprise is unidirectional, always meaning "whole comprises parts", then you can infer that froznitch refers to some aggregate, and gronfuzzle denotes some set of parts (in spite of both words appearing to be singular). What we have lost by comprise being commutative is the ability to make that inference. That inference has little value, because if you have no idea what the words mean, it makes no difference whether you know which refers to the parts and which to the whole. > with the evolution of pidgins, and creoles etc "Drivel spoken by poor colored folk is destroying our language!"

kazinator 3y ago

Meaning is not macro replacement. If we suppose that "comprised" means "consists of", it does not follow that "comprised of" means "consists of of". (Setting aside, for a moment, that "comprised" does not mean "consists of"). Just like "make" possibly meaning "create" doesn't imply that "make up" can turn into "create up". To comprise means for something to contain certain components (usually with a nuance that the list of components is complete). Since at least the 18th century, it has been used in a reverse way: components can comprise the whole. Charles Dickens used it in this reverse sense. It is from this reverse usage that the participial adjective arises: if components can comprise the whole, the whole is comprised of those components. Both the reverse usage and the adverb have been disputed, but are now hundreds of years old. The popularity of the participial adjective has wildly increased in the last half century. There is a logical reason behind the the reversal of comprise that doesn't seem to get discussed. Because comprise has a completeness nuance, it is actually a form of equivalence: if X comprises of parts A, B and C, it means it is equal to those parts. There is nothing else to X but A, B and C. Since equivalance commutes, comprise is expected to follow suit: A, B and C comprise X. Comprise really means something like "exactly covers" or "corresponds to in an exhaustive whole/part relationship". All that has happened is that we have lifted the restriction that the left operand of comprise must be the aggregate, and the right operand be the individual items. > attacking him personally because you don’t agree with him I was going to write "pseudo-intellectual twit on a lunatic correction rampage", but I went with "sad" to be nice.

crazydoggers 3y ago
If you look up the word “comprised” in multiple dictionaries they all define it including “consists of”, “composed of”, “made up of” etc. So right off the bat your argument is flawed. Perhaps you would like to define it the way you did, and perhaps some set of people you converse with may, but the point of a dictionary is so we can define words in ways we all agree on so we all understand each other. As we have learned from Gödel, language is complete, but not consistent. Unlike math. So trying to argue about “comprise” using a more consistent logical framework of A, B, C, commutation, etc. is already a losing battle. I could argue for a long time, having been both an English major, and a software engineer but the short of it is that words are tools. Don’t use a hammer for a screw. Sure you’re allowed to, and the language can evolve into everyone using a hammer on a screw, but the language losses something in the process. There have always been, and always will be editors and people like the Wikipedia editor who help proscribe the usage of words to convey the correct and precise meaning to as many people as possible. The goal is to allow as many people as possible to have as precise an understanding of what is being communicated, with as much precision as is possible for something the must be complete but can’t be consistent. An example can be seen, even on this very page, of English learners, non-native speakers, thankful for what some call “pedantry”, so they can understand what is being said. Without that, language can often become siloed, with the evolution of pidgins, and creoles etc, with the consequence that fewer and fewer people understand each other. Imagine your grandmother trying to read and understand half of what is written on Twitter and TikTok. For content that matters, and that includes Wikipedia, and published texts, editors who work for those publishers are the invisible people behind the scenes helping us all understand eachother. You can scoff at “pseudo-intellectual twits”, but people often fail to realize that the world is often a better, richer place for intellectuals. The people who spend time on things most people find pedantic, often end up inventing things like transistors, understanding quantum physics, etc. Software engineers often appreciate those types of results, but ignore or sweep away the results that lead to richer arts, language and cultural heritage.
- kazinator 3y ago
  I'm looking at Merriam-Webster; it doesn't corroborate your claim; it says that "comprise" is defined as "be made up of". Nothing about "comprised" meaning "made up of". Since Merriam-Webster's "comprise" means "be made up of", it follows that the past tense "comprised" means "was made up of". > the language losses something in the process Not all trends in usage are good and useful, and it's probably good to nip them in the bud. This one happened too long ago to fix now. You cannot wish that single words be returned to 1750. If you want to return to the English of 1750, you have to want all of it, including giving back "sensitivity" and using "sensibility". With comprise being used commutatively, what exactly have we lost? It is this: Suppose that comprise is used with a pair of words, and you don't know what either of then mean. Out of any context, you hear " ...the froznitch comprises the gronfuzzle ...". If comprise is unidirectional, always meaning "whole comprises parts", then you can infer that froznitch refers to some aggregate, and gronfuzzle denotes some set of parts (in spite of both words appearing to be singular). What we have lost by comprise being commutative is the ability to make that inference. That inference has little value, because if you have no idea what the words mean, it makes no difference whether you know which refers to the parts and which to the whole. > with the evolution of pidgins, and creoles etc "Drivel spoken by poor colored folk is destroying our language!"