The --no-commit blues

I've got two branches, one which I commit to quite frequently and another only periodically, call them inward and outward. Inward is where I do my work, outward tracks an SVN repository. I'd like to merge inward to outward without committing the merge so that I may provide a commit message appropriate for checking in to the SVN repo.

`git merge --no-commit inward' from branch outward, I thought, should do it. Performing a `git status' and a `git log' directly afterward seem to indicate that the merge was committed. `git commit' insists the branch is now up to date.

Am I going about this the wrong way? What does --no-commit mean, if I am?

(Also, I asked this on #git earlier. If anyone happens to idle there, pardon me for re-posting this so quickly. I've got terrible lag this morning, enough to time out frequently.)