I am writing a user-interface for a program that configures some things. Let’s call them entries. To help the user keep track of what is left of configuration, a section such as the following is somewhere inside the UI:
Unconfigured entries:
- This
- That
Now, unconfigured is not recognized by the spell checker. Oxford dictionary doesn’t have this word. and Wiktionary says of it:
unconfigure: To remove or undo a configuration.
Well, I wouldn’t be referring to entries that have been un-configured, but, rather to those that have not yet been configured.
What term should I use instead of unconfigured? I insist on having the word configure in the phrase for the user to be able to link the unconfigured entries with the configure operation easily.
Because this is a computer program context (rather than a piece of expositional writing, for example), similarity of terms is preferred over absolute correctness.
Best Answer
I don't find "unconfigured" in the couple of dictionaries I checked. I think most English-speakers would understand the word to mean "not configured" in the sense of "not presently configured", including both things that never were configured and those that were configured and the configuration has since been reversed.
Think of other "un" words by analogy. If I say that I am going to "undo" a task, I mean that I am going to reverse the process of doing it. Like, "Al assembled the motor, but then Bob had to undo his work when he found that one of the parts was defective." But if I say that a task is "undone", I could mean either that it was done and then the doing of it was reversed, or that it was never done. Indeed if I just said, "Here are a list of jobs that are undone", we would generally assume they were never done, not they they were done and then undone.
Logically, in most case "un-X" as a verb has to mean the reversal of the process of X, because if X was never done, how would you un-X it? Why would you need to? But "un-X-ed" as an adjective can mean either that it was X-ed and then un-X-ed, or that it was never X-ed in the first place, because now both possibilities are meaningful.
To "box an order" means to put the stuff in a box, presumably for shipping. To "unbox an order" is to take the stuff out of the box. An "unboxed order" normally means one where the stuff has never been put in a box. We'd probably consider an order where the stuff was put in the box and then taken out as "unboxed", but we wouldn't limit it to that. And there's no way to "unbox an order" that has never been boxed.
An "unsaid words" are not words that have been said and then somehow taken back. An "untried plan" is not a plan that was tried and then the trying cancelled. Etc.
Which is all a long way of saying, "I would say 'unconfigured'." You can't derive the definition of the adjective from the verb in the way you're trying to do that.