Nobody is telling a billion people what to do though? We're just talking about what word to use in an article edited by a handful of people. The billion people can keep using whatever words they want.
Do you really believe the loss society would suffer from editing "comprised of" in Wikipedia articles is actually comparable to what it would suffer if they discriminated against half the population on TV?
I can only speak for myself, but the actual phrase “comprised of” is the least interesting thing to discuss when it comes to this topic.
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.
But again, this isn't even about correcting others' language. People are fine to use whatever language that serves them personally well in their lives - but this isn't about that. It's about writing encyclopedia articles in a way that's best for their readers. Every comment I'm reading here so far seems to insist this is somehow personal toward the author and correcting them, whereas it really isn't.
> It's about writing encyclopedia articles in a way that's best for their readers.
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.
"Best for readers" is not particularly subjective here. We're talking about an encyclopedia whose audience is the entire English-speaking population. Its #1 job is to communicate relevant information on each topic clearly and accurately to the broadest audience in each language - not to match anyone's preferred terminology, write Shakespearean prose, or push the boundaries of the language. We already have multiple words that are perfectly well-suited for use with the intended meaning - we don't even have that luxury with so many other words. Deliberately picking a word that confuses some readers and annoys others just introduces problems and friction where there don't need to be any.
> "Best for readers" is not particularly subjective here.
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.
