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Dina Rickman
Feb 04, 2015
Modern-day hero Bryan Henderson is a man on a mission.
He is one of the most active editors on Wikipedia and has one purpose: to rid the online encyclopaedia of the phrase “comprised of”.
As part of his quest Henderson has written his own computer program and taken the time to edit tens of thousands of Wikipedia articles every Sunday evening since 2007.
Now Medium has profiled the 51-year-old software engineer, who is known as Giraffedata on Wikipedia.
The man himself has written a lengthy explanation about his quest and why he believes “comprised of” is bad English. Most notably, Henderson says the phrase is “completely unnecessary".
"There are many other ways to say what the writer means by 'comprised of'. It adds nothing to the language," he says. Finally, he has this message for his doubters.
The arguments for leaving "comprised of" alone often point out that my edits will not erase the phrase from the language, make people stop using it, or prevent its eventual evolution into undisputed correct English. I agree with all of that, and I don't see how it makes a difference. Those things have never been goals of mine.
What a time to be alive.