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Linux contributors told to sort out their grammar lest they be actively corrected
Picture this. A developer submits a patch to improve the kernel's performance, only to be met with the scornful gaze of Linux chieftain Linus Torvalds, who declares: "Ah, but your participle is dangling! How do you expect the kernel to thrive under such conditions?"
"Would that I had established a style guide prior to this process," muses the supremo, slipping into the pluperfect subjunctive mood, a place of regrets where few happy things dwell.
OK, that's not exactly what happened, but the imaginary dialog made us laugh. We started imagining the exchange after spotting Torvalds getting a bit worked up over grammar on Sunday night on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. He was lambasting the grammatical rather than the coding syntax of contributors. The problem? Devs' use of the passive voice.
This is standard practice for Pull Requests. Makes the descriptions more concise.
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Not the hill to die on where Linux is concerned.
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With street cred like Linus has, I guess he can declare war on anything he chooses. (I have been a Linux user since Yggisdril and Slack.
The point being that passive voice dodges all agency and responsibility for any actions one might commit. “I don’t know how it got in my pocket.” ‘The money came from nowhere.” ‘A war happened.”
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