1

I am writing a software and the following description cannot be more than 15-20 characters long. I need to concisely say

“files that have not been renamed”.

I think “unrenamed files” works, but I'm not sure, since ‘undo’ does not mean ‘not yet done’ but “reverse the last done action”. Also the spell checker complains about it. Please advise.

3
  • What's wrong with files that have not (yet) been renamed which is far more clear than files that have been unrenamed?
    – user140086
    Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 7:03
  • @Rathony We have limited number of characters that can be put. The max is around 15–20 characters. Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 7:52
  • 1
    [Files Not Renamed] How many characters are there?
    – user140086
    Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 7:54

1 Answer 1

1

True, unrenamed is not an English word. If it were, it could indeed mean not yet renamed, just as one meaning of undone is not yet done:

undone  2. Not done or finished:  ‘he had left his homework undone’
oxforddictionaries.com

But it seems that the purpose in question is to label a display, not to write an English sentence. Toward that end, there is nothing wrong with using the label unrenamed files, as long as:

  • Some form of the word rename is nearby and prominent

  • The reason is clear for listing files yet to be renamed

If so, nobody will mistake, or even pause to ponder, the meaning of unrenamed.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .