Early on in my own education (I don’t quite remember when or by whom), it was drilled into me that the verb comprise means “include.” To this day, when I find myself about to use the verb in writing, I usually need to step back and think, “Oh right. Comprise means ‘include.’ For example, ‘The essay comprises three sections.'”

But whoever drilled that into me did not actually give me the whole story.

Let me give you a more complete story here.

The verb comprise historically did mean “include, comprehend.” In other words: “The whole comprises the parts.”

By the 18^th century, though, the verb also had come to mean “compose.” With that meaning of the verb: “The parts comprise the whole.”

Given that this second meaning has been around for centuries and that comprise and compose sound reasonably similar, it’s no wonder that at least some of us pause to think about what comprise means before we use it, at least in formal contexts.

The 5^th edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2011) includes a usage note below the entry for comprise. According to the usage note, the majority of the Usage Panel, in the 1996 survey, accepted the use of comprise to mean “compose.” Only 35 percent of the panel rejected the following sentence as unacceptable: “The Union is comprised of 50 states.” In contrast, in the 1960s survey more than half of the panel’s members did not approve of the use of comprise to mean “compose” in that sentence.

Now, who is on this Usage Panel that is changing its mind?

That is a very good question.

If you look in the prefatory material of the American Heritage Dictionary, you can find a list of all the members of the Usage Panel. It comprises academicians from a range of disciplines, creative writers, journalists, editors, and a Supreme Court justice, among many others; on the Usage Panel are several linguists, including me. I was asked to join the panel in 2005.

The people who comprise the panel represent a range not only of professions but also of attitudes about language. Some are going to be more conservative about language variation and change when they’re filling out the ballot we get about once a year, and some are going to be more liberal.

So when you go into an American Heritage dictionary and see the judgment of the Usage Panel, you should keep in mind that the outcome of our voting does not determine what is “right” and what is “wrong.” Our vote instead often gives you a sense of how a particular usage may be received in academic and/or more formal contexts. The Usage Panel can be helpful because it gives you, as a writer or speaker, more information to decide in any given context how you would like to use a given word.

In this case, do you want to use comprise to mean “include?” Or do you want it to mean “compose?”

Or should it be able to do both, as I have done in this column?