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The problem here is the ambiguity. Someone who uses the original meaning of comprise will interpret a sentence in the opposite way of someone using the new. "Am
by bloppe 3y ago
The problem here is the ambiguity. Someone who uses the original meaning of comprise will interpret a sentence in the opposite way of someone using the new. "America comprises many states and territories" -> "Many states and territories are comprised of America" have the same meaning with the original definition. With the new definition, you'd have to invert both sentences.
This is called a Janus word because it can be it's own antonym. There are other Janus words, like "table" as in "to table a topic for discussion", which means opposite things in American vs British English. The author touches on the fact that that's a regional distinction, but there is no such regional distinction for comprise. Therefore it makes sense for a website like Wikipedia to pick a single form, and the original is still more widespread than the new.
- blipvert 3y agoQuite
- lolinder 3y ago> the original is still more widespread than the new. I'm not so sure. Google ngrams has the new usage recently taking over in published books[0], and those usually learn conservative in their usage. [0] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22comprised+of%22%2C%22comprises%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22comprised+o... (this works because ~no one uses comprise in the passive voice in the old meaning)
- smcl 3y agoAnd use of the suggested (and more correct) alternative "composed of" is more common than both of them combined: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22comprised+of%22%2C%22comprises%22%2C%22composed+of%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22comprised+o...
- dorfsmay 3y agoBiweekly is not its own antonym but it means two completely different things (every other week and twice a week) which for me as rendered it useless since you cannot know which meaning is intended. The best way to deal with this issue is to have body that slows down language changes, then normalise them based on logic and history, something like the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy.
- FR10 3y agoYeah the RAE is super useful to end debates on what a word means, thats it. I see no issues with language not "evolving enough". Spanish written/talked a century ago is different than what it's spoken presently, even if the words mean the same.