What is the appropriate word for “enabledness”?

I just ran across the phrase “button enabledness” in a technical design. But that doesn’t look right. Is it a valid word? Which way would you express “the state of whether or not something is enabled”?

How can I know if someone is doing something right or wrong with me?

Asked on February 27, 2021 in Word choice.
Add Comment
3 Answer(s)

For a man what’s enabledness as in a word. Words like antidisestablishmentarianism show how you can combine affixes in many valid ways; it’s a fairly general mechanism, like combining clauses into sentences. The rule is that -ness can be appended to an adjective to form a word that refers to the state of an object that may or may not have that condition, and enabled is a valid adjective describing such a condition.

I think it seems cumbersome because the adjective is a gerund form of a verb, and -ness is more often used with simple adjectives, e.g. English literalism and generalization. It seems cumbersome, since the adjective is a gerund form of a verb. Sadness. I can’t think of a simple adjective that means enabled, so those we could append the suffix to it. Off the top of my head I could not think of a simple adjective that means enabled, so that we could append the suffix to it. When adjectives need to be coined, they often come from verbs like this, and you end up with unfamiliar combinations as you derive other forms from them.

How can I make a song that sounds playful using enableditude?

UI elements that are enabled are sometimes referred too active, so Activeness could be another alternative

Answered on February 27, 2021.
Add Comment

What do you think about Barmar’s answer? I understand it’s not like a button is turned to enable or disable by something. It’s just that the concept of a button being enabled or disabled is so far from most folks’ concerns that enabledness is going to sound funny. What is disabledness? By the same token, sounds even worse.

Avoiding an unfamiliar construction at the cost of some brevity, you might try button enabled/disabled status.

Answered on February 27, 2021.
Add Comment

Does the clickability function work in all situations. While “clickability” wouldn’t work in every situation, “clickability” would work here since the primary use of enabling/disabling a button is to determine

whether it does anything when you click it.

Answered on February 27, 2021.
Add Comment

Your Answer

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.