> I dislike "followlinks" because "links" is ambiguous; both hard links
> and soft links are "links", but it's only modifying behavior regarding
> one of them.

Technically, in Unix world any file is a hard link. It is impossible to
distinguish a hard link from the "original", they are completely equal.
So I don't think that there will be a ambiguity, what links are implied,
especially, if the documentation is clearly says "symbolic links".

> I therefore suggest that function arguments are most similar to "method names and instance variables"--after all, they *are* instance variables.

Technically, they are local variables.

> "followlinks" is comprised of two words but they are not separated by underscores.

As "getgrouplist" or "sendfile". What about such argument names as
"filename" and "newline"? If being a consistent in that, then it must be
"follow_symbolic_links". And "source_directory_file_descriptor" instead
"src_dir_fd".

> It might actually be nice to clarify PEP 8 on this.

I agree.

> I'm glad you think it's an improvement--we can certainly agree on that!

Of course. This is the issue, for the solution of which I registered
here. All other issues and patches were just distractions and
practice. ;-)  I am grateful to you.