Elijah Newren [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

quoted

... I find the phrase "in a fast-forward way" a bit awkward.
Perhaps use the 'fast-forward' as a verb, i.e.

        Then `git pull` notices that what is being merged is a
        descendant of our current branch, and fast-forwards our
        'master' branch to the commit.

or something like that?  It should be in line with the spirit in
which glossary defines fast-forward, I would think.

...

If you read the release notes and even various messages printed by
git, "fast-forwards", "fast-forwarded", "fast-forwarding", and "to
fast-forward" all appear multiple times.  And yes, "fast-forward" also
appears multiple times as a noun in addition to the various uses as a
verb.  So, I'd say the glossary just isn't comprehensive because in
this case we have a word that serves as both a noun and a verb.

Ah, sorry, I didn't mean noun-vs-verb when I mentioned the glossary.

I thought that the idea that the word can be used as a verb, after
discussing advise() messages that tells the users that they can
"merge, rebase or fast-forward", was given and not something anybody
needs to be explained about.

The other half of what I suggested was to explain what situation is
fast-forwardable, i.e. "notices ... is a descendant of", and I made
sure that the explanation was in line with the grossary.  Without it
explained in-place in the text, readers who need to be told what a
fast-forward is needs to go to and come back from the glossary while
reading this page, which was what I tried to improve while we are
trying to find a better phrasing.