Re: OT: Re: [PATCH 08/15] gitdiffcore(7): fix awkward wording

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@uchicago.edu>
Date: Jul 3, 2008, 12:56 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.62.0807030752190.28699@harper.uchicago.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20080703013733.BIF31353@m4500-01.uchicago.edu>

[Junio: sorry for the duplicate message. It occured to me too late that a clarification might fix some confusion for the rest of the readers of the list, too.]

Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@uchicago.edu> writes:
>
>>> The phrase "diff outputs" sounds awkward to my ear (I think
>>> "output" is meant to be used as a substantive noun.)
>>
>> Ack! that phrase made no sense. If you know what I meant and
>> what it's called, I'd like to know :)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jonathan
>
> As a bistander to this exchange, I am confused.  Who is acking whose
> comment here?

I wrote:

> Sorry, I meant something to the same effect as "Agh". I should have
> just gone to sleep.

But perhaps more important for my meaning is that by "that phrase" I meant the phrase "substantive noun". I meant that "output" is a sort of fluid substance and so is rarely supposed to be plural unless outputs with different qualities are being discussed, but the phrase "substantive noun" conveys none of that at all. In fact, I think the phrase "substantive noun" just means "noun". Hence my dismay at not making any sense.

Sorry about the confusion.

Jonathan