Re: [PATCH v9 5/5] Speed up log -L... -M

On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 06:58:48AM +0100, Thomas Rast wrote:

Eric Sunshine [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 8:52 AM, Thomas Rast [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

This is a bit hacky and should really be replaced by equivalent
support in --follow, and just using that.  However, in the meantime it

s/using/use/

I'm not a native speaker, but I really think 'using' is more correct
here.

Cannot...resist...grammar discussion.

I think you are both potentially right.

You might consider the two items "equivalent support" and "using that"
to be two noun phrases that are objects of the preposition "by", and
that the writer simply omits the second "by" after the "and". In which
case you are making a noun phrase from a verb phrase, and would want to
use the gerund form "using".  And the sentence, simplifying out some
modifiers and adding the missing "by" (which is fine to omit, but the
parts of speech become much clearer with it there), looks like:

  ...should be replaced by equivalent support, and by using that.

However, you could also argue that the final clause is a second verb
phrase for "this should" which just omits the extra "should" (which is
also OK in a list. In which case "use" acts as a verb, and parses as:

  ...should be replaced by equivalent support, and this should just use
  that.

So I think it is correct either way, and though it parses slightly
differently, the overall meaning is the same.

Phew. Totally not worth that much discussion, but for some reason I find
these sorts of ambiguous language cases interesting.

-Peff