efficiency may later be compressed together into "pack files".
Named pointers called refs mark interesting points in history. A ref
-may contain the SHA-1 name of an object or the name of another ref. Refs
-with names beginning `ref/head/` contain the SHA-1 name of the most
+may contain the SHA-1 name of an object or the name of another ref (the
+latter is called a "symbolic ref").
+Refs with names beginning `refs/head/` contain the SHA-1 name of the most
recent commit (or "head") of a branch under development. SHA-1 names of
-tags of interest are stored under `ref/tags/`. A special ref named
+tags of interest are stored under `refs/tags/`. A symbolic ref named
`HEAD` contains the name of the currently checked-out branch.
The index file is initialized with a list of all paths and, for each