Well sure it’d be unsettling but like… what, are you just going to stop language from changing? Good luck with that. We’re just along for the ride, if people start using it that way, then that’s what it means now. Objecting to that is about as much use as to be pissed into the wind.

If language legitimately changes so a sentence or phrase has two opposite yet universally used meanings, (presumably resolved in each instance by context), it would still be better writing to avoid it when clarity of meaning is paramount.

Encyclopedias are a good place to make as few assumptions and gambles as possible with regard to how a reader might comprehend what is written.

Those are just autantonyms, and English has plenty already.

First you dust the cake, then you dust the table.

The castle is impregnable.

And if you add more collocial words, wicked now is good, but also means bad. When a song is cool, you mean it's hot.

People tend to not object to that.

I don't think "impregnable" is an autantonym.

It's presumably the adjective for when something can be impregnated.

> Your castle is surprised...

(Ross, Act 4, Scene 3, Macbeth)

It is objected to in some writing.

"Inflammable" is taught to be avoided.

So are things that mean opposite things depending on locale, like "tabling" an issue. It may be ok within a local group, but would be avoided in writing inside a multinational corporation.

> It is objected to in some writing.

Everything is objected to, that’s not sufficient for a decision. It’s the reason or volume of objecting.

Just saying there’s some objection is the Twitter fallacy. It could be one person, or even me, or it could be 100% of editors.

"Wicked" to mean "good" is slang. So is "cool", used in that sense. Slang is not encyclopaedic language.

I think auto-antonyms should be avoided in an encyclopedia. (And also in scientific publications, text books, and laws.)

I don't see it. The 50 states comprise the United States. The United States is comprised of the 50 states. You can change the word, and the exact same "issues" persist. The 50 states make up the whole of the United States. The whole of the United Sates is made up of the 50 states.

This is the crux of the issue to me - this use of "comprised of" is a completely logical and consistent usage whether or not some people think it's wrong. Plenty of times correct constructions are considered wrong by lots of people, this is what leads to the phenomenon of "hypercorrections". I won't argue that this is necessarily one since the "corrections" don't strike me as better or worse, but languages are inherently subjective. For this reason I find it distasteful to go around enforcing linguistic policies on others.

Except that, per the article, the "correct" rendering would be "The United States comprises the 50 states" or "The 50 states are comprised by the United States" - because the United States is composed of / contains / includes the 50 states. Therein lies the issue: the word "comprised" is being used opposite from its actual meaning.

There probably ain't much we can realistically do about that, though. Words get misused until they're redefined all the time ("literally" being the popular contemporary example). Such are the joys of English being descriptivist.

No - "The United States comprises 50 states".

Peter wasn't shot by Paul, it was John that was shot by Mark, and the whole Paul thing is a hoax.

There are other common examples of active and passive meaning the same thing. "The document is printing" and "the document is being printed", for example. It has no merit other than a popular consensus that it's correct, which is all that's required.

There is no legal right "not to be irritated". It is incorrect to state that this particular case has "no redeeming features". The fact that the phrase is in common usage is all the justification it needs. What's next, "Won't is not a logical contraction of 'will not'"?

But there's loads of stuff like that. "Take a shot" and "take a bullet" (pretty much covers both ends no less)