From: Joshua Juran Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:32:07 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Cite the 50 char subject limit Message-ID: <72F9E3A0-BD79-48CF-9AA6-8473C38C0A98@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: On Jul 28, 2010, at 1:15 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: > On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 19:49, Joshua Juran wrote: >> On Jul 28, 2010, at 12:25 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: >> >>> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 17:23, Junio C Hamano >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Hmph, we probably would want to do s/50 character/&s/ in the two >>>> manual >>>> pages. >>> >>> I'm not sure if "with a single short (less than 50 character) >>> line" is >>> is grammatically correct with "characters", since "characters line" >>> wouldn't make sense. >>> >>> On the other hand that sentence violates the rule that when you put >>> something in parens your sentence should still make sense with >>> s/[()]//g, "a single short less than 50 character line" is pushing >>> it. >> >> If the number of characters is less than 50, then there are fewer >> than 50 >> characters. This demonstrates the distinction between "less" and "fewer". Intensities (like raw numbers) and mass quantities are less; discrete objects are fewer. >> This is a short line of fewer than 50 characters. This demonstrates a grammatically correct way of phrasing a constraint on line length. I could have put the latter half in parentheses, but then it wouldn't be true. :-) > I don't understand the context of that remark or what you're replying > to. > > I meant that I found the "single short (less than 50 character) line" > bit in git-commit.txt, gittutorial.txt and user-manual.txt odd to > read. Agreed. > What did you mean? See above. You could also use "50-character" as an adjective, but "single short line (of fewer than 50 characters)" may be more easily parsed. Another option is "single short line (shorter than 50 characters)". I find it less stilted without "of fewer", but the repetition of "short" is a little clumsy. Josh