Mahatma Gandhi was famously said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” The anti-colonial nationalist/Indian civil rights leader successfully starved his way into leading a path for non-violent protest against Britain’s colonial rule of India and his life is defined by the measures he took as a figurehead of this movement.
History is littered with folks who take up causes that they devote the majority of, if not the entirety of their lives to, sometimes never receiving recognition for their efforts during their lifetime. Take Vincent Van Gogh, for instance, who only became a world-renowned figure until after he cut his ear off and shot himself in the chest, dying “penniless and destitute believing himself to be an artistic failure.” For years, however, he painted consistently, dedicating himself wholly to his art before taking his own life.
American Wikipedia editor Bryan Henderson (@giraffedata) he has decided to devote himself to an undertaking as well: A crusade against the phrase “comprised of” on the popular encyclopedia database.
TikTok user Annie Rauwerda (@depthsofwikipedia) penned about Henderson’s “thousands and thousands” of edits on the Wikipedia site where he changed the phrase “comprised of” to other phrases, like “consists” or “composed of.”
@depthsofwikipedia he has 91,000 total edits 😭
♬ original sound – Annie Rauwerda
“There’s this guy that’s removed the phrase ‘comprised of’ from Wikipedia thousands and thousands of times and replaces it with other things like ‘consists’ or ‘composed.’ He went on National Public Radio to talk about it a couple of years ago and he wrote a 4,300 word essay about why he thinks comprised of is bad, the spark notes are here.” In the video, she points to a Wikipedia page referencing the article she’s talking about. “If you’re ever wondering if he’s still up to it, these are his recent contributions, all from like this past week…”
She scrolls through a page of the user’s Wikipedia profile to show the edits he’s made and sure enough, he has edited the phrase “comprised off” from numerous posts. “He’s definitely still up to it. I am once again amazed, in awe of the tireless single minded devotion that the human race is capable of.”
A 2015 Guardian article delineates why Henderson’s attack against “comprised of” may be nonsensical, highlighting a piece of his essay explaining why he is opposed to its usage. The outlet quotes the following portion of Henderson’s essay: “Many people do not accept ‘comprised of’ as a valid English phrase for any meaning. The argument goes that ‘to comprise’ means to include, as in ‘the 9th district comprises all of Centerville and parts of Easton and Weston.’ And thus, ‘the 9th district is comprised of …’ is gibberish. The phrase apparently originated as a confusion of ‘to comprise’ and ‘to be composed of’.”
The Guardian goes on to call his argument “bizarre,” citing that if the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t have a problem with it, then why should anyone else, along with other reasons as to why Henderson’s charge against the word may be a fool’s errand.
In response to Raewurda’s video, one commenter wrote: “His day is pretty much comprised of editing Wikipedia articles.”
But there were some folks who agreed with his work of eradicating the phrase they believe to be grammatically incorrect from the website: “It’s so true though! You can say ‘comprising, but ‘comprised of’ is not grammatically correct! I’m all for his mission!”
Someone else seems to have agreed with the stance toward Henderson’s work that the Guardian took: “I’m gonna start using comprised of out of spite now.”
“he found the hill he was willing to die on and has stuck to it, i respect it,” another wrote.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Wikipedia via email and Raewurda via Instagram DM for further comment.