From: Marc Branchaud <marcnarc@xiplink.com>
To: "Øystein Walle" <oystwa@gmail.com>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Documentation: fix typos in man pages
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 10:51:38 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <51F7D2FA.7020208@xiplink.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1375132543-20361-1-git-send-email-oystwa@gmail.com>
On 13-07-29 05:15 PM, Øystein Walle wrote:
> Signed-off-by: Øystein Walle <oystwa@gmail.com>
> ---
> I thought I'd take part in the typo fixing frenzy :)
>
> I have some other potential typos lines up. Right now the docs refer to both
> 'filesystem' and 'file system', as well as both 'testsuite' and 'test suite'. I
> think words like these are generally split in English but I'm not sure.
I generally prefer to see the spaces in these words, otherwise it starts to
look more like German.
But of course English is full of exceptions...
> There are also some words that I think look better with with a dash, e.g.
> 'trade-off'. Should I just send these as a patch too instead of jabbering on
> about it?
I'm indifferent to that. I guess it depends on the context, so seeing the
patch would help.
I personally don't have a lot of time to investigate the nuances of English.
However, I desperately hope this list can avoid any linguistic flame wars.
In that spirit, I suggest that anyone posting an orthographic patch (i.e. for
something that isn't an obvious spelling mistake) could helpfully include a
link or two to an explanation of the reasoning for the change. Especially
for folks who aren't native English speakers, this could help avoid a lot of
back-and-forth.
One general source I've found is the English StackExchange:
http://english.stackexchange.com/
> Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt | 2 +-
> Documentation/git-clone.txt | 2 +-
> Documentation/git-daemon.txt | 2 +-
> Documentation/git-diff.txt | 2 +-
> Documentation/gitcli.txt | 2 +-
> Documentation/githooks.txt | 2 +-
> Documentation/gitweb.conf.txt | 4 ++--
> Documentation/user-manual.txt | 2 +-
> 8 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt b/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt
> index d2df487..5354301 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt
> @@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ OPTIONS
> Read file names from stdin instead of from the command-line.
>
> -z::
> - The output format is modified to be machine-parseable (see
> + The output format is modified to be machine-parsable (see
I believe this is a US/UK nuance. As I've recently stated, I think this kind
of change isn't all that helpful as we're likely to see some well-intentioned
person switch it back sometime in the future. If the git project could
choose an official English dialect it would go a long way towards mitigating
such churn.
> below). If `--stdin` is also given, input paths are separated
> with a NUL character instead of a linefeed character.
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-clone.txt b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> index 450f158..3865658 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> @@ -213,7 +213,7 @@ objects from the source repository into a pack in the cloned repository.
> --separate-git-dir=<git dir>::
> Instead of placing the cloned repository where it is supposed
> to be, place the cloned repository at the specified directory,
> - then make a filesytem-agnostic Git symbolic link to there.
> + then make a filesystem-agnostic Git symbolic link to there.
> The result is Git repository can be separated from working
> tree.
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-daemon.txt b/Documentation/git-daemon.txt
> index 223f731..a3283e1 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-daemon.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-daemon.txt
> @@ -189,7 +189,7 @@ Git configuration files in that directory are readable by `<user>`.
> service by exiting with a non-zero status (or to allow it by
> exiting with a zero status). It can also look at the $REMOTE_ADDR
> and $REMOTE_PORT environment variables to learn about the
> - requestor when making this decision.
> + requester when making this decision.
Although I prefer the -or form for this word, this really is one of English's
vague areas. Some words that end with -st definitely take the -er suffix
(tester, jester) but others take the -or suffix (investor). A bit of
Googling also gave no firm result[1][2].
So I think this change is neither good nor bad. However, like the
UK/US-isms, I wonder if there's some way to avoid people changing this back
and forth. But I don't think simply choosing a dialect will help here.
[1]
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/29254/whats-the-difference-between-requester-and-requestor
[2] http://www.spelling.hemscott.net/ends4.html
> +
> The external command can optionally write a single line to its
> standard output to be sent to the requestor as an error message when
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-diff.txt b/Documentation/git-diff.txt
> index 78d6d50..fe42bf6 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-diff.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-diff.txt
> @@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ directories. This behavior can be forced by --no-index.
> commit relative to the named <commit>. Typically you
> would want comparison with the latest commit, so if you
> do not give <commit>, it defaults to HEAD.
> - If HEAD does not exist (e.g. unborned branches) and
> + If HEAD does not exist (e.g. unborn branches) and
> <commit> is not given, it shows all staged changes.
> --staged is a synonym of --cached.
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/gitcli.txt b/Documentation/gitcli.txt
> index 9ac5088..670c285 100644
> --- a/Documentation/gitcli.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/gitcli.txt
> @@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ arguments. Here are the rules:
> they can be disambiguated by placing `--` between them.
> E.g. `git diff -- HEAD` is, "I have a file called HEAD in my work
> tree. Please show changes between the version I staged in the index
> - and what I have in the work tree for that file". not "show difference
> + and what I have in the work tree for that file", not "show difference
Good eyes!
M.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2013-07-30 14:51 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 14+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2013-07-29 21:15 [PATCH] Documentation: fix typos in man pages Øystein Walle
2013-07-30 14:51 ` Marc Branchaud [this message]
2013-07-30 15:05 ` Junio C Hamano
2013-07-30 15:11 ` [PATCH] Specify UK English for the documentation source files Marc Branchaud
2013-07-30 15:52 ` Fredrik Gustafsson
2013-07-30 16:40 ` Junio C Hamano
2013-08-01 15:10 ` [PATCH v2] Provide some linguistic guidance for the documentation Marc Branchaud
2013-08-01 15:14 ` Marc Branchaud
2013-08-01 18:21 ` Junio C Hamano
2013-08-01 18:49 ` [PATCH v3] " Marc Branchaud
2013-08-02 6:25 ` [PATCH v2] " Jonathan Nieder
2013-08-02 14:16 ` Marc Branchaud
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2014-02-05 22:19 [PATCH] Documentation: fix typos in man pages Øystein Walle
2014-02-05 22:35 ` Junio C Hamano
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