Am I wrong or is it incorrect to say something is comprised of a, b and c?
Example #1:
My sad little rock collection comprises a small piece of fancy jasper, a tiger’s eye, a bloodstone, a chunk of quartz and several pieces of feldspar.
Example #2:
Jim’s rock collection is comprised of two diamonds, an emerald, two sapphires, a topaz and a few garnets: his disposable income exceeds mine by a great deal.
In the latter example, comprised should be replaced with composed, right?
Lately, I’ve noticed the phrase ‘comprised of’ used more and more in everyday speech. Imagine my chagrin when I saw it in print! There it was, on the first page of text in America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, mocking me. Oh, how it mocked me.
So what’s the straight dope? I understand that language, for better or worse, evolves. Is this the next step in the dumbing-down of – er, I mean evolution of American English? What’s next? Will people find some way to combine modulate and demodulate? Forsooth, that’s crazy talk!
Neither is correct, per strict usage, according to [url=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=comprise]Dictionary.com
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If you want to be strictly correct, you should say “A small piece of fancy jasper, a tiger’s eye, a bloodstone, a chunk of quartz and several pieces of feldspar comprises my sad little rock collection.”
Q.E.D.'s first post, referring to the OED, answered your question, along with jjimm’s post that a preposition is not used with “comprise” (a corollary of the OED’S rule). This is a question of grammar. As noted, usage has become sloppy of late.
“comprised of” is incorrect, but more and more common. It will eventually become correct, unfortunately.
It’s one of those instances where pseudointellectuals try to use a fancy word in place of a perfectly good less-fancy word in order to come off as a fancy speaker, and they end up looking like an idiot. Other examples: