One Man’s Quest to Rid Wikipedia of Exactly One Grammatical Mistake

[Ron Obvious]

File this under Heroes for Today. This man has made 47,000 edits to Wikipedia doing nothing but correcting the incorrect usage of "comprised of" which apparently really gets up his nose.

Giraffedata—a 51-year-old software engineer named Bryan Henderson—is among the most prolific contributors, ranking in the top 1,000 most active editors. While some Wikipedia editors focus on adding content or vetting its accuracy, and others work to streamline the site’s grammar and style, generally few, if any, adopt Giraffedata’s approach to editing: an unrelenting, multi-year project to fix exactly one grammatical error.


Henderson has now made over 47,000 edits to the site since 2007, virtually all of them addressing this one linguistic pet peeve. Article by article, week by week, Henderson redacts imperfect sentences, tightening them almost imperceptibly. “I’m proud of it,” says Henderson of the project. “It’s just fun for me. I’m not doing it to have any impact on the world.”

[arcane1]

1. I think I love him.

[woo me with science]

2. Actually, it's a usage error.

[Ron Obvious]

3. Fair enough

I was restrained by the title of the article. Also, "incorrect usage of comprised of" implies there's a correct usage of that phrase...

I'm a nerd.

[NV Whino]

4. And then he uses impact wrong.

It's affect, dude, not impact. One of my pet peeves.

[krispos42]

5. "DU is comprised of many liberal users"

C'mon Giraffedata, come get me!

[Ron Obvious]

6. Grrr....

[LiberalElite]

7. Myself, I HATE

misplaced apostrophes - but, I think Mr. Henderson has too much time on his hands.

[begin_within]

8. Only fools believe Wikipedia, Google, Yelp or Snopes

He's wasting his time on meaningless nothing. Those sites are comprised of inaccuracies.