On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 04:06:56AM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote: > Michal Suchánek wrote: > > On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 12:13:08AM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote: > > > Michal Suchánek wrote: > > > > > You can use 'affect' or 'impact' and it generally conveys the same > > > > meaning. > > > > > > That's clearly *your* opinion, but that's not my opinon. > > > > > > I'm not arguing between blue and red; I'm arguing between water-based and > > > lead-based paint. > > > > No, you are not. There is no clear problem with 'impact', either. > > There's no clear problem *to you*. > > > So if somebody comes along later and says that they find 'affect' > > confusing and impact should be used does that need to be accepted as > > well, back and forth ad nauseam? > > No. When that happens we start a new discussion, and see where that > leads. > > > > The difference may not matter to you, but it matters to me. > > > > > > If it's bikeshedding to you, and it "gnerally conveys the same meaning", > > > why are you arguing against? > > > > So if 'for' loops and 'while' loops generally convey the same meaning > > should we accept patches that replace some 'for' loops with 'while' > > lopps or vice versa? > > You are not answering my question, and you are providing an irrelevant > example. > > I don't see any general difference between 'for' loops and 'while' > loops. But I do see a difference between 'impact' and 'affect'. > > You are starting from the premise that $a is no different than $b. > That's your opinion, and I'm not disregarding it. But other people (e.g. > Varun and me) do have a different opinion. > > Again, to make it crystal clear; you opine that $a and $b are equal, we > opine that they are not. We don't disregard your opinion, you do > disregard ours. > > I don't know how much clearer I can make this. > > > In the COCA corpus there is around 200k instances of 'effect', around > > 100k instances of 'affect', and around 100k instances of 'impact' > > which makes effect/affect about 3 times more frequent than 'impact'. > > That's not even an order of magnitude - clearly not enough to claim it > > obscure. > > I don't think you understand the point. > > The word "impact" is not obscure by any means. > > The Chicxulub impactor (probably an asteroid) did create an impact on > Earth that probably killed all the non-avian dinosaurs. In that context > the word "impact" is 100% valid. > > And you can find many such valid instances in those 100k COCA corpus > instances... > > But not all. > > > The way the word "impact" is used in the git documentation is different > than the COCA corpus. Not all the instances of the word "impact" in the > git documentation refer to an event so drastic that it destroyed > thousands of species. > > The point is very simple; there's valid ways of using the word "impact", > and there's invalid ways of using it. The git documentation for the most > part uses the word "impact" in an invalid way. > > How many times the COCA corpuses uses "impact" in $b manner is > irrelevant to the number of times the git documentation uses the same > word in $a manner; the same word can have completely (and sometimes > opposite meanings). > > The word "literally" sometimes means the exact opposite of the word > "literally". So if you find 1 million instances of the word "instance" > used in some way, that doesn't matter, because you might be using it in > a different way. > > > So... Can you answer my question? > > Do you have anything against the word "affect" in *any* instance? Yss, the Merriam-Webster dictionary also lists the meaning "to cause illness, symptoms, etc." I don't think something that drastic should be included in the git documentation. SCNR
