title: understanding git fetch then merge
body: <p>Coming from an svn background, I had this question:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1138990/git-equivalent-of-svn-status-u">git equivalent of svn status -u</a></p>
  
  <p>(what is the git equivalent of <code>svn status -u</code>)</p>
  
  <p>And I understand, you do:</p>
  
  <pre><code>git fetch
  git log ..origin/master
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But, I'm guessing the <code>origin/master</code> part depends on the branch? It wouldn't necessarily be master if I was tracking a remote branch?</p>
  
  <p>I also don't understand the <code>git merge origin/master</code> precisely.  I'm guessing that just means that <code>git fetch</code> grabbed the changes from the remote and put them into the git database system as origin/master and I'm in just master?  What if I fetched changes, check what was done, am horrified by the changes and don't want to merge?  How do I basically abandon them?  </p>