5

Is plannable, (e.g.: this task can be planned, it is plannable) an actual word in UK English?

It's one I see used quite often (mostly in business scenarios, both spoken and in emails) but haven't been able to find in on-line dictionaries and is always underlined by spell-checkers.

Research suggests that it's in fairly common usage although not in any dictionaries. I found some examples and interesting comments here: proz.com/forum/linguistics/…

|improve this question
  • I think this question would be improved if you could find a couple instances of the word in question being used on-line, and provide links. – J.R. May 29 '13 at 9:56
  • @J.R. - I don't recall seeing it in use on-line, but certainly in business emails and everyday speech. – SteB May 29 '13 at 10:01
  • 1
    Perhaps you haven't, but you could do a little research and see what you find. – J.R. May 29 '13 at 10:09
  • Relating to the status of a word: Is 'quantitate' a synonym for 'quantify' or just a misnomer? – Matt E. Эллен♦ May 29 '13 at 10:41
  • @J.R. - Look's like it's in fairly common usage although not in any dictionaries, found some examples and interesting comments here: proz.com/forum/linguistics/… – SteB May 29 '13 at 11:12
3

From your reference it is clearly in use - and in the US as well as the UK.

Personally, if I needed to express that meaning, I think I would use can be planned for or an appropriate variation of that.

|improve this answer
3

Can't find it in any on-line dictionary, so probably not an "official" word (TrevorD's suggestion is probably the best grammatically correct usage for now).

However it is in fairly common usage, mostly in a business environment, so will likely be understood from context and possibly added to dictionaries over time.

|improve this answer
0

Sorry to come in very late on this, but I was also searching for the same thing.

I was considering this word but didn't really like it, so I used "programmable" instead, which does exist and I believe says the same thing.

|improve this answer
  • There is certainly overlap between something that can be planned and something that can be programmed, but the two ideas don't seem entirely interchangeable, do they? What limits would you place on using programmable as an alternative to plannable? – Sven Yargs May 6 '16 at 4:19
  • I also thought at first that they are not completely interchangeable, but didn't manage to come up with any examples of when I couldn't replace plannable with programmable. In my context, I was talking about the use of planning in an electronic calendar (programming the events in the calendar, not the actual calendar application!), so programmable has a time associated element. Does plannable? – Brian Cleveland May 7 '16 at 13:06

protected by user140086 May 6 '16 at 7:44

Thank you for your interest in this question. Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).

Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.