patchEdit user manual for grammer.

Signed-off-by: Steve Hoelzer <shoelzer@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/user-manual.txt |    2 +-
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

 - "last-resort" is two words, not a conjoined word, it doesn't require
   the hyphen
 - "method of" is vulgar, "method for" is nicer
 - "recovery" becomes "recovering" from Steve Hoelzer's original version
   of this patch
 - "if you want" is nicer as "if you wish"
 - "you may" should be "you can"; "you may" is "you have permission to"
   rather than "you can"'s "it is possible to"

Signed-off-by: Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com>
---

My apologies for jumping on your patch, but when I read the context of your change, I couldn't resist fixing some things around it too.

 Documentation/user-manual.txt |    6 +++---
 1 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

Hi,

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007, Andy Parkins wrote:

You sound like you address somebody personally. However, your "To:" only contains the list. Netiquette?

Ciao, Dscho

On Tuesday 2007, June 12, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Apols; I made the patch with git-format-patch, which obviously didn't know who I was replying to.

It was aimed at Steve Hoelzer, as it's his patch I enhanced (and effectively stole :-)

Andy

On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 04:43:19PM +0100, Andy Parkins wrote:

Right, but when you've got a couple words functioning together to modify a following noun, the hyphen's pretty standard: "rosy-fingered dawn". Is this case an exception? I suspect it's fine either way....

Reference?

Fair enough, thanks.

What we really need is a complete recovery tutorial to stick in here someplace. (One day git complains about a corrupt pack file. What do you do?) What's been stopping me from doing it, besides time, is no idea how to come up with a good example to work with.

--b.

On Tuesday 2007, June 12, J. Bruce Fields wrote:

It's certainly common, I don't think that it's correct though. The hyphen's is to form a new word from multiple other words; but often these days it's just used to join two words that the author wanted saying faster in his head. The test I always use is if the meaning remains the same without the hyphen, it wasn't necessary.

Examples:
  merry-go-round    versus    merry go round
  editor-in-chief   versus    editor in chief

Both of the above loose their meaning when they don't have the hyphens.

"last-resort" doesn't need to be compound because separated it still means "the resort that is last".

I don't say that it is a definitive _wrong_ as the meaning is not lost nor modified; but I've always viewed English like programming - don't add unnecessary complication.

Please don't take "vulgar" to mean disgusting, I meant "common". Sorry if that was offensive.

Preposition selection and use is highly localised. I will happily accept if you don't agree. Here is the only reference I can find, but it is certainly not definitive, not entirely about this subject...

http://mb.sparknotes.com/mb.epl?b=2437&m=1259471&t=355765&w=1

However, it does make the case that "of" is possessive, so a "method of ..." means "a method that belongs to ...", so to my ears "a method for" seems the better choice.

A big magnet on your hard disk? ;-)

Andy

On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 08:27:59PM +0100, Andy Parkins wrote:

In cases like this some seem to think it's actually required:

	"Use a hyphen to connect two or more words functioning together
	as an adjective before a noun."

(From p. 234 of "A Writer's Reference", 3rd ed., Diana Hacker--just what I happen to have on my shelf.) I suppose it's there to help find the modified noun when you're constructing modifiers out of multiple words that aren't necessarily adjectives.

But whatever, I've no real objection to the patch.

Nah, just curious. "For" seems a little more precise in this case, so fair enough.

Hah.  OK, next suggestion....

--b.

Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com> writes:

The context was "a last-resort method". In this case, I consider the hyphen necessary in order to keep the adjectivization connected.

J> On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 04:43:19PM +0100, Andy Parkins wrote:

J> Right, but when you've got a couple words functioning together to modify J> a following noun, the hyphen's pretty standard: "rosy-fingered dawn". J> Is this case an exception? I suspect it's fine either way....

According to <http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/042703.htm>, hyphenate unless it's a "ly" or unless it makes clear sense without it.

"J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@fieldses.org> writes:

This rendition of ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς is an adjectivized verb construct, like well-hung, good-natured, forward-looking, thinly-veiled (the latter can be written as two words, too, however).

Nope. It was used in "a last-resort method", namely in the adjectivized meaning. Without the hyphen, it would become the last of some resort methods, quite something different (and nonsensical).

On Wednesday 2007 June 13, David Kastrup wrote:

Agreed.  I withdraw my objection.

Andy

"J. Bruce Fields" <bfields@fieldses.org> wrote:

  dd if=/dev/urandom of=.git/pack/pack-DEAD.pack bs=1 seek=12 count=512

Now run git-log. Its probably toast. The front of the packfile is usually commits, and the first object is usually the most recent commit. It starts at byte 12. ;-)

We actually do this in the test suite to verify that verify-pack will detect the corruption. Recovering from it is a bit more interesting and difficult.

The more common corruption is to repack away an important object by accident in a shared object directory arrangement. Or just havee your OS' "disk corruptor^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hvirus scanner" delete the thing. E.g. create a few commits, pick one out of git-log and just rm its file in .git/objects/??. How do you get out of that mess? ;-)