why can't one alias `git stash`?

Hey.

Personally, I've always disliked that `git stash` already does the `push` and would have much more preferred it, if it did a `stash list`.

So I tried to solve this via an alias like:
[alias]
        stash = "!c(){ if [ \"$#\" -eq 0 ]; then git stash list; else git stash \"$@\"; fi; }; c"

which seems however to be ignored when the alias name is "stash" (it works as it should when I use e.g. foo = ...).

Any idea why that doesn't work?

Also when using such shell functions seems to be not extensively documented (or I didn't find it)... the example in git-config gives the "!c()..." syntax but doesn't seem to tell what the ! is for?

Are these functions executed in a separate shell execution environment (or could I accidentally override a function from some git shell script)?

Is there any sanitisation of the environment that the shell gets (or does it simply get whatever the user has)? I mean a badly set IFS or similar could easily cause troubles.

Thanks, Chris.