Correct perhaps, but confusing. Well actually, not so much confusing as not specific enough for me. I do find that language is getting more and more general, and in so doing is not as bright and vivid as it could be. Anyway, son is pleased to be finished with English and is heading off to uni to study his first love, science .

Hi,

I think that this is more a matter of accepted common usage and personal preference than ‘correctness’ as such.

The words composer and composition have a wide range of uses, but they don’t always go hand in hand.

For instance, we might talk about the ‘composition’ of a painting, but we wouldn’t then talk about the role of the composer – we’d say ‘artist’ or ‘painter’. Similarly we might argue about the composition of a football team but we’d hardly call for the ‘composer’ to be sacked – we’d just say that whoever picked the team got it wrong.

If I got angry and lost my ‘composure’ most people would accept it if I said that I needed to go outside for a moment or two and compose myself. But some might giggle at that and find it a slightly quaint way to put it. There’s no hard and fast rules based on the original derivation of a word.

It’s perfect usual to refer to essays, poems and the like as ‘compositions’ but most people would expect their creators to be referred to as ‘authors’, ‘writers’, ‘poets’ or a number of other possibilities before ‘composers’. It might be technically not a mis-use, but it would still sound odd to many people. Depending on the area in question, you may find 'composition' widely used yet the verb form 'to compose' more rarely, and 'composer' not at all.

However, common usage changes constantly, so if a word gets used often enough in a certain way, then – like it or not – that’s what it comes to mean. Some words that we use today started out historically meaning the exact opposite of what we use them to mean now.

Cheers,

Chris

Good points, Chris, and interesting. I would actually refer to the "composition" of a photograph, but I would be meaning "the putting of this object here on the left and balancing it with this other thing over there", not the act of clicking the shutter. And i would definitely call its creator a photographer and not a composer, just for clarity's sake. Maybe "creator" is the general all-purpose word I'd prefer to the English course's "composer".

Hi again,

Here's another example. I might talk about the 'composition' of a chemical compound. I might even say "it is 'composed of'... " but I'd probably be unlikely to say "Im off to compose a new compound..." or refer to somebody who did as a 'composer'.

No real reason, except that we don't usually use the words that way.

Actually, there is a reason. English is an unusually mongrel language that has absorbed words from all over the place - Latin, Greek, French, German, Scandinavian languages, even from India, China, America, etc, etc. So we have an unusually large number of synonyms and alternatives to choose from. And we have a habit of switching from one form or usage to another in a way that must be completely baffling to non English speakers....

Chris

Recommended reading: Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. A very readable book on the development and use of the English language.

I'm with you on that one too.

I've done a fair bit of writing over the years, including co-authoring manuals, occasional poetry, song lyrics, work for the theatre, odds and ends for newspapers, etc. But I never thought of myself as the 'composer' of any of it - just the writer. However, the beauty of having so many options in English is that you can also employ less used words to add a bit of extra meaning, such as in: "I'll have to compose a suitably apologetic letter to the Board.." or "I've been asked to compose an ode to Councillor Blowhard on the occasion of his retirement"... In that case, you'd normally use 'write', but 'compose' adds a touch of slightly tongue in cheek seriousness to the process. Maybe they just thought that calling them 'composers' made the course sound a bit grander than it really was?


Gotta love English though....

Cheers,

Chris

Ahah, that made my very short day.

I consider myself a composer/songwriter.

A "song" is only one kind of composition. If you only write songs, then you're a songwriter or a “composer of songs”.

If however, you write instrumental music, you're a composer.

If you wear both hats, you're a composer/ songwriter.

At least that's how I see it.

Best, John