Complement, compliment. The rst word denotes something that completes or adds to something else, while the second refers to words of praise The poem’s dedication complemented the ode, which complimented the writer’s achievements.” Compliment. See complement. Compose, comprise. Things that compose something are the parts or elements that go into it. The entity or whole that is created by the things that compose it then comprises or embraces (contains) its parts. Comprise is used too often when makeup or a similar simple construction would do better than this Latinism, which is also often confused with compose WRONG The car was comprised of many parts.” This usage violates the strict meaning of the word comprise RIGHT The car was composed of many parts Still sti but technically correct. BETTER The car was made up of (had, contained) many parts RIGHT Grammar comprises punctuation, spelling, and many other rules and opinions See Latin.
