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I'm a software engineer wanting to use a short but clear text like the following as a selectable option.

  • Treat similarly named patches equally

Should I should use -ly with both of similarly and equally?

Or are the following alternatives better?

  • Treat similar named patches as equal
  • Treat similar named patches equally
  • Treat similarly named patches equal

What I want to say is that all patches with an equal or almost equal name (thus similar), should be treated in the same way. The result is that patches considered to be in the same name class will be overwritten or referenced as a group instead of being copied separately. Possibly in the future 'Treat' may have other consequences, like being restored or not etc. So it can be considered as performing an action on two patches who have a name that is similar to the other (when enabled) or not performing the action (when disabled).

By the way, patches can be substituted with something else, eg items; it is not the issue. Note, similar patches is a different concept than patches with similar names; here, the focus is on names of patches.

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    You got us right: equally.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 13:23
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    "Similar named patches" is not the same as "similarly named patches"; nor is "treat them as equal" the same as "treat them equally". The last alternative is ungrammatical; the other three (including the question title) are all grammatical and different from each other.
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 13:36
  • @AndrewLeach Thanks for your clarification; I edited the question and hope it is more clear now.
    – Michel Keijzers
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 14:35

2 Answers 2

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  • Treat similarly named patches equally

Your first example (as quoted above) is both grammatical and expresses the sense you explained in the question. Using a hyphen (ie, similarly-named patches) would explicitly indicate that similarly modifies named, not patches.

The variants with the phrase “similar named patches” can be interpreted as a reference to named patches that are similar. Some people would interpret it as a reference to patches with similar names, and some as a reference to named patches that are similar. Some people would argue it can only be interpreted logically one way or the other. Regardless of whether that is so, different people may interpret it differently.

In any case, if you want a particular interpretation and want that interpretation to be explicit, either use hyphenated phrase like “similarly-named patches” or “similar named-patches”, or refer to patches with similar names, or refer to named patches that are similar.

Also consider the following forms.

  • Treat like-named patches equally
  • Treat like-named patches as a group
  • Treat like-named patches as a class
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  • I like the hyphen-idea, like-named is something I never seen before (but I assume your English is better than mine).
    – Michel Keijzers
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 17:06
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    @MichelKeijzers, although like-named is not a common composition, like- often is used in such a way, usually in the phrase like-minded.
    – James Waldby - jwpat7
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 19:35
  • @jwpat17 Yes you are right in that ... I will take it into account. Probably going for Treat like-named patches equally (your first proposal).
    – Michel Keijzers
    Commented Nov 27, 2014 at 10:47
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I agree with Andrew that all the sentences you proposed except the last are grammatical, and have subtle differences in meaning. I would take that as a sign that the sentence needs rewriting to eliminate possible misunderstanding. Maybe something like "Treat patches with similar names in the same way."

I hope it will be clear enough to the reader which names are sufficiently "similar".

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  • The problem is that I want the text to be short; however I might use your text for the tool tip (explanatory text).
    – Michel Keijzers
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 17:07

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