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Comment by mikelward | Hacker News Reader

That link also says "(use the imperative)".

But it does seem like Linux is inconsistent about capitalization. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

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> That link also says "(use the imperative)".

So it does. How are people managing to independently get this so wrong? The form used in a commit message isn't an imperative. It's an infinitive. No commands are being issued. This is like a purported grammar book telling you that third-person singular subjects use plural verb forms when the verb is in the past tense. The form is identical (except, in the example, for was), but the statement is obviously incorrect.

A sentence must have a subject and a predicate, and a verb in the infitive form can't be a predicate (it's usually going to be some kind of complement). 'Fix the bug' is usually taken to be a sentence describing what you meant the commit to do, which is why the imperative is the more likely interpretation.

> A sentence must have a subject and a predicate, and a verb in the inf[in]itive form can't be a predicate

In the well-formed sentence

    For cyanide to kill you, you need to be exposed to a lethal dose all at once.

What do you think "to kill you" is?

Furthermore, idiomatic commit messages are pretty clearly not sentences, so I don't see why you think sentence structure should determine what they contain. And even on your own analysis of how the messages are interpreted (which I agree with), those verbs are infinitive, just as "fix" is infinitive in this dialog:

    Q: What is this patch supposed to do?
    A: Fix issue #351916.

> What do you think "to kill you" is?

Infinitive. The predicate is "need" in this case. Swapping the order might make it clearer:

    You need to be exposed to a lethal dose all at once for cyanide to kill you.

"For cyanide to kill you" is constructed from the sentence "cyanide kills you", and obeys exactly the same rules. It predicates an action (killing) of a particular agent (cyanide), though it is not bound to any particular time. If "kills you" is a "predicate" in the finite clause, then "to kill you" is also a predicate in the nonfinite clause. Can you make the argument that it isn't without special pleading?

The infinitive form of verbs in English always starts with "to", as in "to add", "to fix" etc. That would be a very strange commit message. Imperative is normal: "Add x feature" etc

This is not correct; many infinitives are marked by "to" and many aren't. Such marking may, depending on context, be required, optional, or prohibited. For example, in "this can be a hassle", "be" is an infinitive. There just isn't any way to interpret it as an imperative. Who are you commanding?

And in the commit message "Add feature X", "add" is likewise an infinitive.

https://glossary.sil.org/term/infinitive

https://glossary.sil.org/term/imperative-mood

Eh? "To be" is not the main verb in that sentence so of course it's in infinitive form. "Add feature X" is imperative. "To add feature X" is infinitive.

> "To be" is not the main verb in that sentence ["this can be a hassle"] so of course it's in infinitive form.

This directly conflicts with your earlier statement that

> The infinitive form of verbs in English always starts with "to", as in "to add", "to fix" etc.

That earlier statement is wrong, so contradicting it doesn't really present a problem, but you've left me pretty confused as to what you think you're saying.

Whether "be" is the "main verb" in that sentence is a more interesting question. There's a decent argument that it is, in that "this can be a hassle" is easily viewed as a modified form of the sentence "this is a hassle", but not as a modified form of the defective sentence "this can". But you're correct that the standard analysis just says that "this can be a hassle" is sentence where the subject is "this", the verb is "can", and the object is an infinitive clause.

I thought it went without saying that we're talking about main verbs because verbs in other positions don't change forms anyway.

    At this point, he has been being investigated for six months.

That sentence contains four verbs, of which zero are in the plain form. (One is present-3sg, one is ING-form, and two are EN-form.)

Are all four of them "main verbs"?

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