Re: [PATCH 2/7] [doc] git-merge: link to new merge conflicts guide

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

"D. Ben Knoble" <ben.knoble@gmail.com> writes:

> PS Unlike Junio---perhaps due to my lack of older Git history and
> terminology, despite using Git since 2016?---I would never have read
> "unstaged" as *deleted* from the index. Just changed and not updated
> in the index (i.e., not "git add"-ed).

I agree such an interpretation is certainly possible.

The verb "to unstage" would be the opposite of "to stage", but it is
ambiguous what kind of oppositeness you want to express.  This is
unlike "to stage" whose possible interpretation is fairly narrow.
You register the contents that you consider desirable for the path
using various means.  On the other hand, "to unstage" is undoing the
result of your earlier act "to stage", but it may mean reverting to
what is recorded in HEAD (i.e., "git reset HEAD -- path"), undoing
the fact that you added a path to the index (i.e., "git rm --cached
-- path").  Neither interpretation is what you want when talking
about what a conflicted merge does to remember the three stages for
a conflicted path in the index.

Hence my suggestion to avoid using the verb.