diff --git a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
index 627cde8520..b761b4b965 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
@@ -156,11 +156,6 @@ syntax.
   and dereference the tag recursively until a non-tag object is
   found.
 
-'git-rev-parse' also accepts a prefix '{caret}' to revision parameter,
-which is passed to 'git-rev-list'.  Two revision parameters
-concatenated with '..' is a short-hand for writing a range
-between them.  I.e. 'r1..r2' is equivalent to saying '{caret}r1 r2'
-
 Here is an illustration, by Jon Loeliger.  Both node B and C are
 a commit parents of commit node A.  Parent commits are ordered
 left-to-right.
@@ -168,9 +163,9 @@ left-to-right.
     G   H   I   J
      \ /     \ /
       D   E   F
-       \  |  /
-        \ | /
-         \|/
+       \  |  / \
+        \ | /   |
+         \|/    |
           B     C
            \   /
             \ /
@@ -188,6 +183,40 @@ left-to-right.
     J = F^2  = B^3^2   = A^^3^2
 
 
+SPECIFYING RANGES
+-----------------
+
+History traversing commands such as `git-log` operate on a set
+of commits, not just a single commit.  To these commands,
+specifying a single revision with the notation described in the
+previous section means the set of commits reachable from that
+commit, following the commit ancestry chain.
+
+To exclude commits reachable from a commit, a prefix `{caret}`
+notation is used.  E.g. "`{caret}r1 r2`" means commits reachable
+from `r2` but exclude the ones reachable from `r1`.
+
+This set operation appears so often that there is a shorthand
+for it.  "`r1..r2`" is equivalent to "`{caret}r1 r2`".  It is
+the difference of two sets (subtract the set of commits
+reachable from `r1` from the set of commits reachable from
+`r2`).
+
+A similar notation "`r1\...r2`" is called symmetric difference
+of `r1` and `r2` and is defined as
+"`r1 r2 --not $(git-merge-base --all r1 r2)`".
+It it the set of commits that are reachable from either one of
+`r1` or `r2` but not from both.
+
+Here are a few examples:
+
+   D                A B D
+   D F              A B C D F
+   ^A G		    B D
+   ^A F             B C F
+   G...I            C D F G I
+   ^B G I	    C D F G I
+
 Author
 ------
 Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> and
diff --git a/Documentation/git-show-branch.txt b/Documentation/git-show-branch.txt
index f115b45ef6..a2445a48fc 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-show-branch.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-show-branch.txt
@@ -52,6 +52,11 @@ OPTIONS
         appear in topological order (i.e., descendant commits
         are shown before their parents).
 
+--sparse::
+	By default, the output omits merges that are reachable
+	from only one tip being shown.  This option makes them
+	visible.
+
 --more=<n>::
 	Usually the command stops output upon showing the commit
 	that is the common ancestor of all the branches.  This
diff --git a/builtin-show-branch.c b/builtin-show-branch.c
index 09d8227862..260cb221b9 100644
--- a/builtin-show-branch.c
+++ b/builtin-show-branch.c
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 #include "builtin.h"
 
 static const char show_branch_usage[] =
-"git-show-branch [--dense] [--current] [--all] [--heads] [--tags] [--topo-order] [--more=count | --list | --independent | --merge-base ] [--topics] [<refs>...]";
+"git-show-branch [--sparse] [--current] [--all] [--heads] [--tags] [--topo-order] [--more=count | --list | --independent | --merge-base ] [--topics] [<refs>...]";
 
 static int default_num = 0;
 static int default_alloc = 0;