From: me@tobin.cc (Tobin C. Harding)
To: kernelnewbies@lists.kernelnewbies.org
Subject: english grammar and patches
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2017 16:05:59 +1000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20170426060559.GC18468@eros> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20170426043439.GA5734@kroah.com>
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 06:34:39AM +0200, Greg KH wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 09:25:26PM -0400, valdis.kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> > On Wed, 26 Apr 2017 10:27:00 +1000, "Tobin C. Harding" said:
> > > This question relates to English grammar and correct usage when
> > > writing gitlog messages and patch series cover letters.
> > >
> > > The writing of gitlog messages is covered in submitting-patches.rst,
> > > of note is the mood to use. It is not stated but I think it is
> > > a subjunctive description of the problem being addressed followed by
> > > an imperative description of what is being done in the patch. Please
> > > correct me if I am wrong.
> > >
> > > The question is: what mood to use in the cover letter.
> >
> > Please note that most kernel hackers wouldn't recognize a subjunctive mood
> > if it bit them on the ass. In addition, we have a large number of people
> > writing code for whom English is a second, or third, or even not well learned
> > fourth language.
> >
> > And I'm not even convinced that even if they were able to recognize it,
> > that it would be the correct mood to use.
> >
> > http://www.dummies.com/education/language-arts/grammar/using-the-subjunctive-mood-in-english/
>
> I agree with these, and then there is the big fact that some
> maintainers, myself included, just ignore the 00/XX emails and don't
> really read them, as the patches themselves should contain enough
> information to understand what is happening.
>
> But note, some maintainers really do like them, and do care. So you
> can't ignore them. Just do a short summary of what is going to be in
> the patch series, that's all. No one expects a short essay with correct
> grammer, this shouldn't be a major amount of work to create it, just a
> few sentences saying what the patch series contains is all that is
> needed.
Oh cool, thank you!
Tobin
prev parent reply other threads:[~2017-04-26 6:05 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2017-04-26 0:27 english grammar and patches Tobin C. Harding
2017-04-26 1:25 ` valdis.kletnieks at vt.edu
2017-04-26 4:34 ` Greg KH
2017-04-26 6:05 ` Tobin C. Harding [this message]
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