This comprises many of the issues I have with âcomprise.â
Mr. Henderson has just eliminated the need for any further discussion of what is required to earn the Pedants Pendant here at the BoingBoing forums.
In the world where Mr. Henderson lives, no one else can be worthy of being named a pedant.
It could improve the encyclopedia. It could get someone angry and start an edit war and escalate though. âI have been guarding the sacred text, and you must not change it!â
https://www.google.ca/?tbm=pts&gws_rd=cr,ssl&ei=QoDSVOvcINCqyASu0YBo#tbm=pts&q="comprised+of"
Like emptying the ocean with a thimble.
The problem is that there is really no good reason to suppose that âcomprised ofâ is ungrammatical in the first place. The idea that this is some sort of new confused coinage is simply mistaken. The ever excellent âLanguage Logâ blog discussed this issue in 2011 and found examples of âcomprised ofâ dating back to the 1700s. So an argument that this well established phrase is somehow inferior to âcomposed ofâ is a bit silly.
He so needs a wiki page. Stating clearly his manifesto.
So thereâs always one âcomprised ofâ that he canât removeâŚ
You can only save one from drowning: apropos or comprised ofâŚ
The same argument can be used for âopportunity of +present participle,â âdifferent to,â âabolishment,â âin a bad way,â âan historic,â etcâŚ
Which version is more clear, and more readable, across more dialects?
There is a reason English is not French (or Latin, or German, or Gaelic, etc), and that is because the people of England spoke French (or etc.) wrong but understood each other anyway.
If some people say âcomprised ofâ and other people understand what they mean, the language worked and it is thus, correct.
Thatâs a somewhat different issue, although there have been attempts to purposely limit English in order to supposedly make it easier to understand such as Ogdenâs Basic English. Whether or not they work is somewhat questionable. A perhaps apocryphal story was that Winston Churchill was a fan of Basic English until he was told that his saying âblood, toil, tears, and sweatâ translated to âblood, hard work, drops from eyes, and body waterâ.
Actually, itâs all about ethics in BBS pedantry.
In other news, I am surprised this is not a bot.
Hmm, can I go after âbased off ofâ instead of âbased onâ?
When I read or hear that one, I justâŚ
Gotta set one of those up that can detect nouns and verbs, and then use it for âeffectâ and âaffect.â
But thenâŚ
Oh god, affect and effect. I was once told, 'Well everyone else thinks youâre wrong soâŚ"
I had to admit to myself that if everyone started using it incorrectly, it would be right. But thereâs a time and place for those kinds of consideration and the middle of an argument a discussion about âaffectâ and âeffectâ is neither. 
Wait, do mean the God affect, or the God effect? 
Perhaps both. But Iâm delusional. 
This is what I love about people. We just do these things because we have to.
You know what you have to do now, donât you? But get some better quotations first, blogs donât really count.
