Documentation: stylistically normalize references to Signed-off-by:

Ted reported an old typo in the git-commit.txt and merge-options.txt.
Namely, the phrase "Signed-off-by line" was used without either a
definite nor indefinite article.

Upon examination, it seems that the documentation (including items in
Documentation/, but also option help strings) have been quite
inconsistent on usage when referring to `Signed-off-by`.

First, very few places used a definite or indefinite article with the
phrase "Signed-off-by line", but that was the initial typo that led
to this investigation.  So, normalize using either an indefinite or
definite article consistently.

The original phrasing, in Commit 3f971fc425b (Documentation updates,
2005-08-14), is "Add Signed-off-by line".  Commit 6f855371a53 (Add
--signoff, --check, and long option-names. 2005-12-09) switched to
using "Add `Signed-off-by:` line", but didn't normalize the former
commit to match.  Later commits seem to have cut and pasted from one
or the other, which is likely how the usage became so inconsistent.

Junio stated on the git mailing list in
<xmqqy2k1dfoh.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com> a preference to leave off
the colon.  Thus, prefer `Signed-off-by` (with backticks) for the
documentation files and Signed-off-by (without backticks) for option
help strings.

Additionally, Junio argued that "trailer" is now the standard term to
refer to `Signed-off-by`, saying that "becomes plenty clear that we
are not talking about any random line in the log message".  As such,
prefer "trailer" over "line" anywhere the former word fits.

However, leave alone those few places in documentation that use
Signed-off-by to refer to the process (rather than the specific
trailer), or in places where mail headers are generally discussed in
comparison with Signed-off-by.

Reported-by: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
Signed-off-by: Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn@sfconservancy.org>
Acked-by: Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/MyFirstContribution.txt b/Documentation/MyFirstContribution.txt
index 4f85a089ef..492f3998f7 100644
--- a/Documentation/MyFirstContribution.txt
+++ b/Documentation/MyFirstContribution.txt
@@ -249,7 +249,7 @@ component you're working on, followed by a blank line (always required) and then
 the body of your commit message, which should provide the bulk of the context.
 Remember to be explicit and provide the "Why" of your change, especially if it
 couldn't easily be understood from your diff. When editing your commit message,
-don't remove the Signed-off-by line which was added by `-s` above.
+don't remove the `Signed-off-by` trailer which was added by `-s` above.
 
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 psuh: add a built-in by popular demand