Re: [PATCH v9 5/5] Speed up log -L... -M

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mar 23, 2013, 09:04 UTC
Message-ID: <20130323090459.GB25600@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <87k3oyzmg7.fsf@pctrast.inf.ethz.ch>

On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 06:58:48AM +0100, Thomas Rast wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 8:52 AM, Thomas Rast <trast@student.ethz.ch> wrote:
> >> This is a bit hacky and should really be replaced by equivalent
> >> support in --follow, and just using that.  However, in the meantime it
> >
> > s/using/use/
> 
> I'm not a native speaker, but I really think 'using' is more correct
> here.

Cannot...resist...grammar discussion.

I think you are both potentially right.

You might consider the two items "equivalent support" and "using that" to be two noun phrases that are objects of the preposition "by", and that the writer simply omits the second "by" after the "and". In which case you are making a noun phrase from a verb phrase, and would want to use the gerund form "using". And the sentence, simplifying out some modifiers and adding the missing "by" (which is fine to omit, but the parts of speech become much clearer with it there), looks like:

  ...should be replaced by equivalent support, and by using that.

However, you could also argue that the final clause is a second verb phrase for "this should" which just omits the extra "should" (which is also OK in a list. In which case "use" acts as a verb, and parses as:

  ...should be replaced by equivalent support, and this should just use
  that.

So I think it is correct either way, and though it parses slightly differently, the overall meaning is the same.

Phew. Totally not worth that much discussion, but for some reason I find these sorts of ambiguous language cases interesting.

-Peff