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I'm writing error messages, and one is "maximum length exceeded".
There is no correlating word meaning length < minimum.
I could write "the length is less than the minimum length" but you can see that's way more wordy than the succinct meaning of "exceed"
"maximum length exceeded"
"input string too short"
Jim
another hole?
I recently discovered something about our English language that I hadn't known too, as we here in Scotland have a word for it. It's not in the dictionary....yet ;)
antonym for within =
what is this mysterious Scottish word?
unexceed
noxceed
nonexceed
antiexceed
deexceed
underexceed
exceedless
understep
Alternatively, borrow the word from another language, anglicise it.
Dutch: overschrijden or overtrekken.
Italian: oltrepassare or eccessivamente
French: excéder or dépasser.
Once you have your word, just stick an un-, anti-, non-, de- or similar in front of it!
anti-overschrijden
under-overtrekken
non-oltrepassare
de-eccessivamente
non-excéder
un-dépasser
Voila! C'est tres buono, echt waar?
;-)
Syzygy
>what is this mysterious Scottish word?
= "outwith"
I honestly didn't know it wasn't a real word such is widespread usage here.
"outwith the scope", "outwith these premises" , "outwith my control"
interestingly a Google News search right now is showing 157 results for the word, which appears mostly in Scottish Newspapers.
maybe it'll make into the dictionary some day - I didn't change my page, which uses it twice, out of a sense of patriotism if the nationals can use it so can I :)
It's proper antonym would then be recede, whose latin root is recedere, past participle of recessus, which means "going back from".
Technically neither word means to be more or less than the required parameters.
Outwith - maybe it'll make into the dictionary some day
I have the second of the two volume New Oxford Shorter English Dictionary open in front of me, at the letter O. It says:
outwith Chiefly north. & sc. 1 Of position: outside of, beyond. 2 Of motion: out of, away from.
Syzygy
1. Outwith is a Scottish word, and
2. not to ignore my old faithful dictionary in favour of online ones!
now that I've dug out old faithful, I see it's there too - 8th Edition Concise Oxford, old as the hills :)
ah its tj, i thought for a moment we'd been invated by a spam bot!
my vote for the missing word would be insuffice.
in your case i would go with a usage of insufficient as an adjective or maybe unsatisfied as a verb.
Don't make up any new words, or use words that they may not understand. Use something understandable, like "too short" (as suggested by jdMorgan in post #2).
"Password too short" is meaningful and tells me exactly how to fix it. "Password insufficient" or "Password outside parameters" will be meaningless gobbledygook to most users, and does not inform them, clearly and succinctly, what they need to do to fix it.
Of course you don't want to be too clear ... users might be offended at seeing "User too stupid" even though it often fits the situation ;-)
But I think Sonjay is absolutely correct and it's better to say to the user:
Password too long (12 characters maximum) or Password too short (6 characters minimum) and leave it at that.
The common southern English translation for outwith is without. (No really).
Sam was up betimes next day, and having partaken of a hasty breakfast, prepared to return to London. He had scarcely set foot without the house, when his father stood before him.
Dickens, Charles, "Chapter 27: Samuel Weller Makes A Pilgrimage To Dorking, And Beholds His Mother-In-Law" in The Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club
if the opposite of "within" (to be inside the confines of) is "without", then the opposite of "with" should be "unwith". As in, "I like my coffee unwith sugar, please."
"Maximum xx characters"
"Minimum xx characters"
Clear, concise, informative.
