[ExI] Language Changing Before Our Very Eyes

[Lee Corbin]

Jef writes

> On 5/21/07, PJ Manney <pjmanney at gmail.com> wrote:
>> <sigh>
>> I don't know why I rise to this bait...
> 
> Same here.  I must have issues.  ;-)

"Same here"?  Whatever are the two of you on about?  (Just
want to know.)  Originally I wrote

> > 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.

and PJ mentioned the "bait" occuring here somehow.  What exactly
is that?  Speaking of language "rising to bait" implies that an imposition
has occurred some way.

Thanks,
Lee