"Composed of" and "consists of" are better alternatives.
is incorrect. It should read:
Composed of" and "consists of" were better alternatives.
This thread is literally a clout ATM machine for a group comprised of pedants.
A critical mass of people have adopted the term serverless. Therefore, the term means whatever they want it to mean, right? No sense in swimming against the tide here, correct?
Yes, words mean what people want them to mean if we're willing to shrug our shoulders and accept the new usage or terminology. That doesn't mean it's never correct to fight against sloppy or non-standard usage in the hopes that it won't be considered standard.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35811741&p=2#35812073
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.
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+o... (this works because ~no one uses comprise in the passive voice in the old meaning)
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.
What you're defending is a bit like replacing all female TV hosts by men and then saying that nobody surely is against men on TV.
I am fascinated by a single person taking up the cause of “correcting” the language of others based off of their personal linguistic aesthetic preference.
I don’t see many people saying “I often have to stop at the words ‘comprised of’ and reevaluate the meaning of the sentence that I’m reading lest I completely misunderstand it.” This isn’t actually in practical service of clarity, it’s an exercise in preserving a sense of meaningful posterity — a deeply personal and sentimental endeavor despite what “reasons” one is able to elucidate.
This sentence contains a load-bearing “best”. The Wikipedia editor’s contention is that they have established the canonical “best”, and it is that contention that is being scrutinized.
This is correct. It is exactly the same amount of subjective as the word “best” normally holds. Since there has never been a reproducible measure of best-ness in any objective sense of anything linguistic, it’s squarely in the territory of subjectivity.
If by “best” you mean “understandable to virtually all readers” then “comprised of” and “composed of” are equally “best”
If best-ness is measured by something other than usefulness, then the person that decides the new set of weights with which to weigh best-ness is performing a personal and subjective act. “Orthodoxy to a standard of English as cited by me in context of the year x” does not automatically qualify something for extra best-ness points.
I will gladly entertain the issue of “comprised of” somehow lacking in accuracy with a person that is genuinely confused by its inclusion in a sentence.
(On a personal note, as a non-native speaker of English I've always found the phrase "comprised of" confusing. I infer the "directionality" based on context but am unsure how to use it correctly myself.)
Can't see why anyone would be annoyed.
If you want to change the meaning of a word, that’s fine, and maybe in a few decades you will succeed, but until you get enough people on board you will only cause confusion.
The author means “composed of” and “consists of” are better phrases to use in general (i.e. according to style guides), not were better phrases exclusively for use on his Wikipedia project. We know this for sure because in the “Quotations” section the author says that he changes “comprised of” to “composed of” or “comprises” in quotations under certain circumstances. He is not wary of using “comprises”.
The author also indicates that this work is still ongoing and meant to be evergreen.
For this reason, I thought his “ATM clout” statement meant the opposite of what he meant.
Yes this is true for natural language, but we don't want Wikipedia to have natural language. We want Wikipedia to have clear and concise language.
French for example, is different. They have council with official authority over the language.
I understand languages change, which I think is an argument for the edits. If the language pivoted one way, pivoting back is just as valid a change as any other. "Comprised of" and similar phrasing doesn't come out of the ether. They build in popularity as they propagate through writing. There's a big snowball effect. I suspect going forward, you'll see "comprises" or "consists of" because people just copy what they see. Most don't have a strongly formed opinion about which phrase is better.
Personally, I view writing as a craft or skill like any other. Writing is different than speech and always has been. There's a huge qualitative difference in text that has been edited and text that is streamed out of someone's head. The former is almost always clearer to understand. Consequently, if someone points out a grammatical issue to me I say "Oh, TIL, thanks for letting me know" and then I adapt and go on with my life. My bias is to the established norm, not arguing that I'm riding the wave of a linguistic revolution. If I have an open question on something, I'll consult an established resource, just like I would in any other field or craft.
I think the problem is people get embarrassed when they're told they're using the language incorrectly. I get it. I've been there. It's true that English does not have a governing body like French, but I don't see that as a compelling justification for redefining terms or just arguing that nothing can ever be wrong.
That's most high-level Wikipedia editors in a nutshell.
Another question: are there places where accuracy and precision are more important than others? Would an encyclopedia be one of those places? I'll reveal my cards here: I believe so.
Somewhat humorously I think a good chunk of the disagreements here come from people treating those concepts interchangeably. Attempts to apply mathematical reasoning to language and interpretation are doomed to fall into similar traps.
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