When I run `git clean --dry-run` the results are a bit like:

```
Would remove an_untracked_file
Would remove an_untracked_file_2
Would not remove some_unrelated_folder/subfolder/

```

The "unrelated" folders are tracked and have had no changes, so I would not expect git to remove them.

But, why does git report `Would not remove` for some, but not all, of my project's normal (and totally untouched) folders?

Can I tell what is causing git to consider, but then decide against, removing them?

`git status` lists only the couple of un-tracked files I know about. As expected.

`git ls-files --other --exclude-standard` returns those same un-tracked files. As expected.

`git ls-files --other --exclude-standard --directory` returns those same un-tracked files, plus a bunch of seemingly normal directories. This is not what I expected to see since I thought [the purpose of](http://linux.die.net/man/1/git-ls-files) `--directory` was to *reduce*, not increase the number of results returned.

Upon spot checking the unexpected directories, it seems each one is empty, except for a ".gitignore"d .svn sub-folder. Perhaps this factors in to things.

Can anyone help me understand this behavior? 

Thank you