[PATCH] docs: use "currently" for the present time

[PATCH] docs: use "currently" for the present time

[brian m. carlson]

In many languages, the adverb with the root "actual" means "at the
present time."  However, this usage is considered dated or even archaic
in English, and for referring to events occurring at the present time,
we usually prefer "currently" or "presently".  "Actually" is commonly
used in modern English only for the meaning of "in fact" or to express a
contrast with what is expected.

Since the documentation refers to the available options at the present
time (that is, at the time of writing) instead of drawing a contrast,
let's switch to "currently," which both is commonly used and sounds less
formal than "presently."

Signed-off-by: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
---
This is a minor issue I noticed one day and thought I'd send a patch
for.  I should point out that English differs from virtually every other
language I can find that uses something like "actual", so this is an
easy mistake to make.

 Documentation/config/http.txt | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/config/http.txt b/Documentation/config/http.txt
index 5a32f5b0a5..8471b39f0f 100644
--- a/Documentation/config/http.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config/http.txt
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ http.saveCookies::
 http.version::
 	Use the specified HTTP protocol version when communicating with a server.
 	If you want to force the default. The available and default version depend
-	on libcurl. Actually the possible values of
+	on libcurl. Currently the possible values of
 	this option are:
 
 	- HTTP/2
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ http.sslVersion::
 	particular configuration of the crypto library in use. Internally
 	this sets the 'CURLOPT_SSL_VERSION' option; see the libcurl
 	documentation for more details on the format of this option and
-	for the ssl version supported. Actually the possible values of
+	for the ssl version supported. Currently the possible values of
 	this option are:
 
 	- sslv2

Re: [PATCH] docs: use "currently" for the present time

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Mon, 20 Jan 2020, brian m. carlson wrote:

> In many languages, the adverb with the root "actual" means "at the
> present time."  However, this usage is considered dated or even archaic
> in English, and for referring to events occurring at the present time,
> we usually prefer "currently" or "presently".  "Actually" is commonly
> used in modern English only for the meaning of "in fact" or to express a
> contrast with what is expected.

 ... snip ...

as someone who is constantly being sheldon cooper-level pedantic, i
totally agree with this sentiment.

rday

Re: [PATCH] docs: use "currently" for the present time

[brian m. carlson]

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On 2020-01-20 at 21:33:58, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jan 2020, brian m. carlson wrote:
> 
> > In many languages, the adverb with the root "actual" means "at the
> > present time."  However, this usage is considered dated or even archaic
> > in English, and for referring to events occurring at the present time,
> > we usually prefer "currently" or "presently".  "Actually" is commonly
> > used in modern English only for the meaning of "in fact" or to express a
> > contrast with what is expected.
> 
>  ... snip ...
> 
> as someone who is constantly being sheldon cooper-level pedantic, i
> totally agree with this sentiment.

As I mentioned, this is very minor and I can't imagine a native English
speaker being confused by it, nor can I imagine a speaker of most
European languages finding it confusing.  It just stood out to me since
I know Spanish and French and I thought, "Oh, someone was thinking in
another language here."

I've actually been sitting on this patch for a while because I thought
it might be too minor to send, but I finally decided to do it as I was
sending some other doc patches.
-- 
brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204

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Re: [PATCH] docs: use "currently" for the present time

[Junio C Hamano]

"brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> writes:

> As I mentioned, this is very minor and I can't imagine a native English
> speaker being confused by it, nor can I imagine a speaker of most
> European languages finding it confusing.  It just stood out to me since
> I know Spanish and French and I thought, "Oh, someone was thinking in
> another language here."
>
> I've actually been sitting on this patch for a while because I thought
> it might be too minor to send, but I finally decided to do it as I was
> sending some other doc patches.

Thanks.  The use in the sslVersion seems to have come from 01861cb7
("http: add support for specifying the SSL version", 2015-08-14) and
the other one seems to have just copied it at d73019fe ("http: add
support selecting http version", 2018-11-08).

Will queue.

Re: [PATCH] docs: use "currently" for the present time

[Philip Oakley]

On 20/01/2020 21:33, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jan 2020, brian m. carlson wrote:
>
>> In many languages, the adverb with the root "actual" means "at the
>> present time."  However, this usage is considered dated or even archaic
>> in English, and for referring to events occurring at the present time,
>> we usually prefer "currently" or "presently".  "Actually" is commonly
>> used in modern English only for the meaning of "in fact" or to express a
>> contrast with what is expected.
>   ... snip ...
>
> as someone who is constantly being sheldon cooper-level pedantic, i
> totally agree with this sentiment.
>
> rday
As long as we don't use "presently" which is seen as a bit horrid here 
in UK (like 'momentarily' - as in 'I'll be with you..') ;-)

Philip.