Today the Grammarnatrix responds to a reader who wants clarification between the words comprise and compose. A worthy question considering most people usually use comprise and don’t even know the two words are different. This answer will excite you to start using these words correctly whenever you can.
Comprise means “to contain,” as in “the office comprises 10 chairs.” In other words the office has, or contains 10 chairs. Great. If you notice, the office is the sum of its parts, the whole, the kit and kaboodle, so it comes first when you use the word comprise. You wouldn’t say, “the 10 chairs comprise the office.” No, the sum of the parts always comes first. Another example might be, “Central Park comprises 26 ball parks.” “Central Park” is the sum of its parts so it comes first in the sentence. You wouldn’t say “Twenty-six ball parks comprise Central Park.”
Now that you understand that concept, let’s take a 180-degree turn and go to the word compose. Compose means “to make up,” as in, “Fourty-three members compose our club.” Notice it’s a 180-degree turn because now the parts come before the whole. Another example is, “many berries compose the fruit salad.” (There are more shades of grey to these words, but if you follow these easy guidelines, you’ll be considered correct more often than not.)
That was easy enough, but now there’s more. What about the expressions, “is comprised of,” and “is composed of”? Only the latter is correct. You can say, “the cake is composed of many ingredients,” or “the cake comprises many ingredients,” but you can’t say the cake is comprised of many ingredients.” Whew! Easy rules but it leaves your head spinning!
So, to summarize, “the whole comprises the parts and the parts compose the whole.” There you have it – a saying to excite you to start using these words correctly whenever you can.
