Re: [PATCH] defer: Fix grammar issues across Chapter 9 text

["Kunwu Chan" <kunwu.chan@linux.dev>]

February 28, 2026 at 3:13 AM, "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@kernel.org mailto:paulmck@kernel.org?to=%22Paul%20E.%20McKenney%22%20%3Cpaulmck%40kernel.org%3E > wrote:


> 
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 12:48:45PM +0900, Akira Yokosawa wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Hi,
> >  
> >  Let me chime in.
> > 
> Thank you both for digging into this!
> 
> I am with Akira on these. Responding to each inline...
> 
Thanks for the clear explanation — very helpful, appreciate it.

> > 
> > On Fri, 27 Feb 2026 02:34:43 +0000, Kunwu Chan wrote:
> >  [...]
> >  
> >  Hi Paul,
> >  
> >  Sounds good. I went through the current PDF and gathered the occurrences 
> >  of "hinted at/on" that I could find. Here is the list for review:
> >  
> >  Using PDF file: perfbook.2025.12.18a.pdf.
> >  
> >  1) PDF location:
> >  p.98 (PDF page 110/686), Chapter 6 (Beyond Partitioning)
> >  Source location: SMPdesign/beyond.tex (line 14)
> >  
> >  “This chapter has discussed how data partitioning can be used to
> >  design simple linearly scalable parallel programs.
> >  \Cref{sec:SMPdesign:Data Ownership} hinted at the possibilities of
> >  data replication, which will be used to great effect in
> >  \cref{sec:defer:Read-Copy Update (RCU)}.”
> > 
> Here we are referencing a section, so we say "in Section ...".
> 
Thanks.
> > 
> > 2) PDF location:
> >  p.142 (PDF page 154/686), Chapter 9.4 (Sequence Locks)
> >  Source location: defer/seqlock.tex (lines 411–416)
> >  
> >  “As hinted on
> >  \cpageref{sec:defer:Mysteries sequence locking},
> >  both the read-side and write-side critical sections of a sequence
> >  lock can be thought of as transactions, and sequence locking
> >  therefore can be thought of as a limited form of transactional
> >  memory, which will be discussed in
> >  \cref{sec:future:Transactional Memory}.”
> > 
> And here as well.
> 
> > 
> > 3) PDF location:
> >  p.155 (PDF page 167/686), Chapter 9.5 (RCU)
> >  Source location: defer/rcufundamental.tex (lines 559–563)
> >  
> >  “In such cases, RCU readers can be considered to be fully ordered with
> >  updaters, despite the fact that these readers might be executing the
> >  exact same sequence of machine instructions that would be executed by
> >  a single-threaded program, as hinted on
> >  \cpageref{sec:defer:Mysteries RCU}.”
> > 
> But the English language being what it is, we say "on page ...".
> The rational is that when you read a physical dead-tree book, the page is
> laid out flat, with the ink you are reading being physically on the page.
> As opposed to inside of it or something.
> 
Thanks — the "ink physically on the page" image really helped. 
Much easier to grasp. :-)

> > 
> > 4) PDF location:
> >  p.184 (PDF page 196/686), Chapter 9.5.4.12 area
> >  Source location: defer/rcuusage.tex (lines 2052–2054)
> >  
> >  “And so it is that RCU's use cases are conceptually more complex than
> >  is RCU itself, as hinted on
> >  \cpageref{sec:defer:Mysteries RCU Use Cases}.”
> > 
> Again "on page ...".
> 
> > 
> > 5) PDF location:
> >  p.533 (PDF page 545/686), Quick Quiz answers area
> >  Source location: defer/rcuintro.tex (lines 141–145)
> >  
> >  “As hinted at in
> >  \cref{sec:cpu:Hardware Optimizations,sec:cpu:Hardware Free Lunch?},
> >  speed-of-light delays mean that a computer's data is always stale
> >  compared to whatever external reality that data is intended to model.”
> > 
> And again "in Section ...".
> 
> One way of thinking of this is that sections are usually multiple pages.
> If you held in your hand the pages making up a section, the writing
> would be in (not on) the stack of pages.
> 
Thanks — that “stack of pages” picture makes it very clear.

> > 
> > Please let me know which ones you’d prefer to keep as-is and 
> >  which should be adjusted, and I’ll prepare a patch accordingly.
> >  
> >  Not a native speaker of English, but I don't see any need of changing them.
> >  
> > From 1)
> >  
> >  Section XXX hinted at the possibilities of data replication, ...
> >  
> > From 2), 3), and 4)
> >  
> >  As/as hinted on page YYY ...
> >  
> > From 5)
> >  
> >  As hinted at in Section ZZZ, ...
> >  
> >  All of them sound pretty natural to me.
> >  
> >  You might be missing the implication of "page XXX", which can mean
> >  physical page in a book. Saying "on page XXX" is quite natural.
> >  OTOH, when you see "Section XXX hinted at <some ideas>", you should
> >  consider "hint at" works as a synonym of "indicate" as a verb.
> > 
> I suspect that both Chinese and Japanese make different choices, but I
> don't know enough about either to say. Google Translate seems to treat
> pages and sections the same for Chinese ("在第3页" and "在第2部分"
> but Arabic numerals?) and for Japanese ("3ページにあります" and
> "セクション2にあります" and also Arabic numerals?). On the
> other hand, I trust Google Translate only up to a point. So you guys
> tell me! ;-)
> 
> For whatever it is worth, French is similar to English, with "à la"
> for pages and "dans la" for sections, where "la" is the feminine form of
> the English word "the". The in/on/with words are big bags of meanings,
> so French "à" can be English "on", but the meanings do not coincide
> precisely, for example, "à" sometimes translates instead to English
> "from". However, French "dans" almost always translates to English "in".
> 
> I took four years of French in high school, mais cela signifie en
> américain «Je ne parle pas français» ("but that is American for
> 'I don't speak French'"). ;-)
> 
> And you know the old joke: English is what you get when Germans attempt
> to speak French.
> 
Thanks for the explanation — very helpful.
The language notes (and the joke!) were fun too. 
Learned something new there. ;-)

Thanx, Kunwu

>  Thanx, Paul
> 
> > 
> > Hope this helps.
> >  
> >  Thanks, Akira
> >  
> >  
> >  
> >  Thanx, Kunwu
> >
>