Composing or comprising? [duplicate]

"Year-over-year revenue growth of 63 per cent brought total subscription revenues to more than $4bn for the first time, making it by far the biggest format of recorded music in the United States, comprising 47 per cent of the total market."

This appeared in an article and someone promptly suggested it be corrected to composing instead.

My claim, basically that the usage was correctd, was from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/comprise

Make up; constitute. ‘this single breed comprises 50 percent of the Swiss cattle population’ ‘documents are comprised of words’

Counter-claim, from the person with the original correction:

Garner's Modern English Usage:

Comprise.

A. And compose.

Correct use of these words is simple, but increasingly rare. The parts compose the whole; the whole comprises the parts. The whole is composed of the parts, the parts are comprised in the whole. Comprise, the more troublesome word in this pair, means "to contain; to consist of"...

C. Comprise for make up or constitute. If the whole comprises the parts, the reverse can't be true - e.g.:

"Of the 50 stocks that comprise [read make up] the index, 40 had gains....

D. Comprise for are. This is an odd error based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of comprise. E.g.: "They comprise [read are] three of the top four names in the batting order of...

Who's right?


I'm inclined to agree with Garner's, but it comes down to one's view on established usage. I strongly dislike the word "impactful" and other instances of business jargon turned (arguably) legitimate usage. This article covers the spread of business jargon.

However, like a cancer, "impactful" has established itself and is unlikely to go away, although I still have hope. Likewise, the use of "comprise" to mean "make up; form; constitute" is distasteful to many despite the fact that this usage is probably too well established to make a retreat any time soon. This article discusses the issue.

The author concludes with a quote from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage:

Our advice to you is to realize that the disputed sense is established and standard, but nevertheless liable to criticism. If such criticism concerns you, you can probably avoid ‘comprise’ by using ‘compose,’ ‘constitute’ or ‘make up.'

For me, it's not the threat of criticism, but rather my aesthetic sensibilities that induce resistance to new and awkward usages of a word when other perfectly adequate words covering the intended meaning already exist.