diff --git a/book/05-distributed-git/sections/maintaining.asc b/book/05-distributed-git/sections/maintaining.asc
index 4a9db7a90..03efaac7f 100644
--- a/book/05-distributed-git/sections/maintaining.asc
+++ b/book/05-distributed-git/sections/maintaining.asc
@@ -537,7 +537,7 @@ It summarizes all the commits in the range you give it; for example, the followi
 [source,console]
 ----
 $ git shortlog --no-merges master --not v1.0.1
-Chris Wanstrath (8):
+Chris Wanstrath (6):
       Add support for annotated tags to Grit::Tag
       Add packed-refs annotated tag support.
       Add Grit::Commit#to_patch
diff --git a/book/07-git-tools/sections/revision-selection.asc b/book/07-git-tools/sections/revision-selection.asc
index a021f3663..b5bd1413e 100644
--- a/book/07-git-tools/sections/revision-selection.asc
+++ b/book/07-git-tools/sections/revision-selection.asc
@@ -227,9 +227,8 @@ $ git show "HEAD^"   # OK
 
 ====
 
-You can also specify a number after the `^` – for example, `d921970^2` means ``the second parent of d921970.''
-This syntax is useful only for merge commits, which have more than one parent.
-The first parent is the branch you were on when you merged, and the second is the commit on the branch that you merged in:
+You can also specify a number after the `^` to identify _which_ parent you want; for example, `d921970^2` means ``the second parent of d921970.''
+This syntax is useful only for merge commits, which have more than one parent -- the _first_ parent of a merge commit is from the branch you were on when you merged (frequently `master`), while the _second_ parent of a merge commit is from the branch that was merged (say, `topic`):
 
 [source,console]
 ----