The Rant o’ the Day: Comprise

There are two ways in which you will typically hear this word being used, and one of them is wrong.

I’m well aware that as dictionaries continue their slide away from being a place you can go to find out how you should use some word, and toward simply being wikis of every conceivable way in which the word is used, you will be able to find some sort of “dictionary” that disagrees with these, but ask yourself this: Do you really want to be seen as using constructions that most reputable sources will call “substandard” or “dialectal” or “idiomatic”?

The word “comprise” means to bring together, to include, to be made of, as in:

• The committee comprises the heads of all the departments.
• The article on the blog comprises three distinct parts.

It does not simply replace “made,” as in:

• The committee is comprised of the heads of all the departments.
• The article on the blog is comprised of three distinct parts.

Today, I came across another use of the term: “The article comprises of these separate parts…” Sort of a compromise, I guess, but a compromise is a situation where all parties are equally unhappy.

References:

It is very disconcerting to see the number of times a source that is supposed to be a standard of usage says something like “Usage number X is considered as wrong, although there is no reason why it should be” (emphasis added). Um, because the word has a meaning? Because if we allow meanings to slide, then soon we will have no language? Anyway, all of these sources do show that the comprising is done by the whole, from the parts, and not by the parts themselves.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/comprise

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/comprise

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comprise

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/comprise