[ExI] Language Changing Before Our Very Eyes

[PJ Manney]

On 5/21/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> Taken from a sentence in an on-line course I am being forced
> to undergo:  "The structure is comprised of the following...."
>
> Not so many years ago, that sentence would have read "composed"
> instead of "comprised". (I actually think that the above is incorrect,
> and that the official and correct use of "comprise" is, for example,
> to say that X, Y, and Z comprise W.)  But I also have a sense---
> a vague one, to be sure---that the above writer was striving for
> precision, and that he may have felt that "compose" was too loose.
> And indeed, this use of "comprise" may by now carry a more specific
> meaning to some of his readers.

<sigh>
I don't know why I rise to this bait...

As you can see below, the definition of comprise has indeed drifted
from its older meaning.  It started drifting in the 18th century.
Surely, Lee, you aren't THAT old!  Could it be you've been complaining
about it for the last two hundred years?

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

> Isn't it true that "issues" has
> very recently become a euphemism for "problems"?   Moreover,
> is it true that this use of "issues" has decended from bureaucratic
> techno-speak?   Seems that way to me.

"Issues" is psychobabble-therapy speak for "problems."  It has the
appropriate non-judgmental flavor that therapists prefer when
describing a behavior they hope they never have themselves.

> Of the two, each is worse than the other. The first is worse
> because it's a blatant misuse of a word, while the second is
> worse because it's yet another example of the mindless march
> of euphemism (e.g. crippled -> handicapped -> physically
> challenged).

If you read your Neil Postman, Lee, (in this case, Technopoly: The
Surrender of Culture to Technology), you'd see that you are correct in
your impression, although it has less to do with the 'mindless march
of euphemism' and more to do with the fact that we have always adapted
the language to the prevailing technology (and psychotherapy could be
interpreted as a technology).  It goes both ways.  For example, humans
are viewed as 'thinking machines' whose minds can be 'programmed' and
'deprogrammed.'  Brains are 'hard wired' and require the 'input' of
'data.'  On the other hand, computers get 'viruses' with the entire
host of human-medical terminology (infection, contagious, virulent,
vaccine, innoculated) that comes with it.

I appreciate that you have 'issues' with the imprecision of language.
I myself am a stickler for diction when it comes to my own kids.  But
the larger issue is that language evolves.  Period.  Sorry.  Can't
help it.  Please click on the link below and refer to the list of
words that a single writer invented or used in written English for the
first time for his plays and sonnets.  Yes, all these words debuted in
the works of Shakespeare.  And even if they didn't, because the
earlier reference was lost to the sands of time, he still used words
that were uncommon in English usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_invented_by_Shakespeare

The next time you use language in any way, remember that your 'issue'
with 'comprise' is 200 years old and you're still complaining about
it, but the psychology metaphors began 100 years ago and the computer
metaphors are only 50.  You better start catching up, my friend, or
you'll start telling us Shakespeare had a lot of nerve.

> P.S.  Was anyone who read the above jolted at all by my
> insensitive male-chauvinist use of the generic "he" and "his"
> in the second paragraph?  No?  Well, would you have
> noticed if I had written "she" and "her"?   I conjecture that
> even those under age 30 still notice when the really more
> specific "she" and "her" are used, despite all the efforts of
> the politically correct over the last twenty-five years.

I had to read it a few times to know if it was appropriate for a lady
like myself to answer, since, apparently, writers are men.  But I
thought I'd risk it.

PJ