comprise

I have often thought that the best option for us all is to avoid the word comprise completely because it is so misunderstood.  Mostly the confusion is  that a parallel is drawn with consist of with the consequence that comprise is given a particle of that it doesn’t need or want.

A sentence consists of a subject and a verb

A sentence comprises a subject and a verb.

Often you will find:

A sentence comprises of a subject and a verb.

Of course in the passive the particle comes into play.  We are much happier with this passive voice construction than we are with the active voice. There are those who don’t like this construction and would prefer composed of although there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for the ruling.

A sentence is comprised of a subject and a verb.

I would have thought that comprised of still has the sense of identifiable parts making up the whole, whereas composed of refers to some base elements which have been transformed into a new whole.  The cake is comprised of a number of slices. The cake is composed of eggs, butter, milk and sugar.

The word comes into English through French from Latin where it had the basic meaning of ‘seize’.  The Latin comprehendere breaks down into prehendere to seize or snatch with an intensifying com- prefix.

The first meaning in the early 1400s was of a physical seizing but that became a metaphorical comprehension or perception by the late 1400s.  The sense of containing as parts making up a whole was also there in this early period.  But the meaning ‘to constitute, make up, compose’ dates back to the late 1700s.  We have had plenty of time to get it right.

The most startling example of comprise avoidance I heard recently was from a newsreader who substituted compromise for comprise.  It didn’t make sense, of course, but was a good example of the instinct to go to a word that is familiar rather than employ one that is unfamiliar, with complete disregard of the nonsense created.