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If "errored" is not a valid word, then how should I say:

The program errored at line 44

I guess I could say:

The program threw an error at line 44

But why is "errored" wrong? Is there a better alternative?

nohat
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JD Isaacks
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    Best answer I've heard (not my own, but I like it) ... "Language is what we make of it. If "grrl" can be in the dictionary, errored can be a word." ... Yes, I'm American, can you tell? :^) –  Jun 13 '11 at 18:57
  • In the immortal words of Calvin, Verbing weirds language. – MT_Head Jun 13 '11 at 23:43
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    The program suffered an error at line 44. The program committed an error at line 44. The program obtained an error at line 44. The program enjoyed an error at line 44. At line 44 the program put an error over on you. – GEdgar Apr 05 '12 at 21:11
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    In computer science, the word error has its own meaning! as work has its own meaning in physics entirely different in meaning from mainstream usage of the same word. Hence, I would be satisfied with errored or for that matter error-ed... – Vineet Menon Apr 06 '12 at 05:11
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    Right click on the word. Select Add to Dictionary. Error is defined as a Noun, but we use it as a Verb, in another 10 years or so the Language Police will see the error in their ways, and allow us to use it as a Verb as well as a Noun, like Googling. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/googling –  Apr 05 '12 at 20:10
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    If it was correct, wouldn't it have another r as in errorred? – Martin Brown Nov 30 '16 at 16:28
  • The program failed at line 44 – Joe B Nov 03 '21 at 19:26
  • Well, if I think about this in terms of English, err is a verb. So the program erred. We programmers forgot about that word when verbifying error. – binki Mar 11 '24 at 18:33

10 Answers10

37

I'd say errored IS a valid word. It's the past tense of the verb "to error". I've seen (well, mostly heard) this word used to mean

  • to operate incorrectly,
  • to display an error message,
  • to encounter an unexpected error,
  • to halt unexpectedly

This is a relatively recent usage of the word (I can't find any authoritative samples of it) it might be considered too informal or slangy. Also, some people might not be sure what precisely you are trying to say. Thus, you should describe more fully what the program is doing.

The program encountered an error at line 44.

Wiktionary

Merriam-Webster (new words, slang)

The verb 'to error' has a different meaning than 'to err'. An "error" in a computer program isn't necessarily a mistake, but can be an exceptional circumstance. For example, if a program tried to open its configuration file, but you deleted it, the program might fail by displaying an error for this unexpected circumstance. You could say "the program errored." You can't say "the program erred" because the program isn't making a mistake here.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇
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    It's not very standard usage. "To error" might be slowly becoming a verb but most educated speakers would say that "err" is the verb. – Joel Spolsky Sep 17 '10 at 03:06
  • @Joel: I'd say it's got a different nuance than "err". And sure, I agree that it's not widespread, but I hear it a lot in computer circles. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Sep 17 '10 at 13:45
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    I personally don't really like the word but use it regardless as it's concise and generic. It's a catch-all word for 'displayed an error', 'thrown an exception', 'crashed' etc. It's widely used as a word meaning 'did something wrong' without going into details as to what has actually happened. When I say 'my program errored in line 33' I expect the other person to know what I mean, otherwise I'd use another word to be more specific. – Gilead Apr 07 '12 at 02:35
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    You used different terminology in your last paragraph: "error" and "exception(al)". I could argue (and languages such as Java would support me), that an exception is not an error. Would you then support usage of "the program exceptioned"? So you are right, you cannot say "the program erred", but neither can you say "the program errored". The program threw an exception. – NobleUplift Feb 24 '14 at 21:16
  • @NobleUplift When people say "The program errored" they do not necessarily know or care if it "threw an exception". A programmer might care, but this word is not restricted to programmers. Anyway some exceptions are errors, such as NullPointerException. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Feb 25 '14 at 13:58
  • This justifies my usage in a short results message that lists with counts: tests, failed, errored, ok, and ignored. :) – Aaron Hall Jul 09 '14 at 14:47
  • I just tried to use 'Errored' in an error message and my editor told me there was an error in my spelling. Four years later, I still can't find 'Error' as a verb in any edited/curated dictionary. I believe the word is 'Erred'. – Umbrella Jul 22 '14 at 20:33
  • @Umbrella The word "Erred" is not the same as errored. If your editor doesn't accept "errored" that is a symptom of the word being a recent coining. Some authorities consider it unacceptable. But definitely do not try to substitute "erred" for "errored". They are not the same. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Jul 23 '14 at 02:59
  • If to err means "to make a mistake", and "mistake" is a synonym for "error", and "to err" is not the same as "to error", then you assert "to error" means something other than "to make an error". If so, what does it mean? – Umbrella Jul 23 '14 at 14:51
  • Reviewing your post, I suppose you'd say "to encounter an error". Eh, I think the confusion here is that "errored" is a usage based on playful verbing by people who are not concerned with linguistic consistency (ie: English speaking programmers) and therefore doesn't have a consistent usage, or definition. – Umbrella Jul 23 '14 at 15:07
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    Just because "mistake" and "error" (as nouns) are sometimes synonymous doesn't mean that "to mistake" and "to error" need to be synonymous. The verb "to error" is not used by anyone to mean "to make a mistake". If there is anything consistent about "to error" it is that it does not mean "to err". Anyway you can't use "to mistake" synonymously with "to err" either. The patterns you see do not represent some kind of linguistic design. All language is created by its users, just like "to error". – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Jul 23 '14 at 16:19
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    I agree with this definition. To 'err' is to make a mistake. A program that shows an error message, under exceptional circumstances, is doing exactly the right thing. So it's not erring, but it is erroring – the person who erred could be the user (e.g. trying to open an unsupported file). However, a program does err if it is doing completely the wrong thing under the right circumstances. For example if I ask "2 + 2 =" and it outputs "5". There's no error message, but it is a mistake, so the program has erred. – Seth Jeffery May 10 '16 at 11:04
  • As this answer shows "to error" is not only in common usage among computer people, but also has several different meanings. It might mean the program operated as intended or that the program operated as not intended. Perhaps we are best to avoid the word (as a verb) until its meaning has settled down. – Theodore Norvell Nov 17 '18 at 12:42
33

You can actually say "The program erred at line 44", but it's not very idiomatic. "Err" also occurs in the saying "To err is human, to forgive is divine".

If you're looking for the correct idiom, you could say "the program encountered an error at line 44" or "the program hit an error at line 44", etc.

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    I don't think "erring" and "encountering an error" mean the same thing. I would say "the program erred" only if, for example, I asked for the capital of Illinois and it told me "Chicago". – Kosmonaut Sep 15 '10 at 21:49
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    @Kosmonaut: It isn't really clear what the program did from the question. –  Sep 16 '10 at 00:00
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    @Shinto: You don't think so? I think the author clarifies what he meant by saying that it can also be called "throwing an error". Also, what would be the use of have a message about a program "erring" on a certain line, if the "error" is not in the computer sense? – Kosmonaut Sep 16 '10 at 11:04
  • @Kosmonaut: I'm not so sure I want to argue really hard for "the program erred at line 44", as I think I indicated in the answer. "Threw an error" isn't really clear to me, it could mean that there was an error like "division by zero" or it could mean that the program decided that it could not continue for some reason. –  Sep 16 '10 at 12:48
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    @Shinto: So, what do you mean when you say "you can actually say X, but it's not very idiomatic"? To me, that means that X is correct, but not common. I think your answer is misleading, particularly for non-native speakers who would be interested in the answer to this question. If you have no desire to defend it, then edit it out. – Kosmonaut Sep 16 '10 at 16:20
  • Oh please, stop nitpicking like this. –  Sep 16 '10 at 20:35
  • I disagree with your first comment @Kosmonaut. If the program threw an error and exited, it erred. Replace each word with their definitions and you have the same phrases, "threw a mistake" and "make a mistake". However, if the program returned Chicago as the capital of Illinois, that is an algorithmic error. The program ran perfectly fine. – NobleUplift Feb 24 '14 at 20:52
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    @NobleUplift: "Throwing/encountering an error" has a specific meaning in computing. "Erring" is something else that has much broader application; it simply means "to make a mistake". "Throwing an error" is often not something a program does by mistake. If a program tries to connect to a database and the database is not available and an error is thrown, the program has not erred. So, these terms are not interchangeable, even if in some instances you could use the broader "err". – Kosmonaut Feb 27 '14 at 15:27
  • The program did err though: it assumed that a database connection could be made, and it couldn't. The very existence of an error means that something erred; the question is what. – NobleUplift Feb 27 '14 at 15:45
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    @NobleUplift I think you are conflating errors and failures. If the program needs a database and the database is not available, the program is not erring. It does display a message, which is typically referred to as an error message, but the program is operating correctly. It cannot be said to err. The database's unreachable nature may be because of some error condition somewhere, or be because of scheduled downtime. It cannot be assumed that it is erring either. Systems that are operating exactly as they are meant to can fail without erring. However when they do fail they might error. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Jul 23 '14 at 03:04
  • Your argument sounded pretty good until you tried to forcibly use 'error' as a verb, instead of a noun, which it is. I don't see why you would go to such great lengths to cease use of a word's verb form over its noun form. The hierarchy of negative program results is that a Failure is a Defect which is an Error. There is no conflating errors and failures. Failures are errors. – NobleUplift Jul 23 '14 at 15:08
  • It is impossible for a system to fail without erring. An error is, "[the] difference…between a computed result and the correct result". If a system fails, it is not producing the correct result. – NobleUplift Jul 23 '14 at 15:10
  • When a program throws an error, it is usually because a programmer erred. – Theodore Norvell Nov 17 '18 at 12:34
  • Ten years later, is this still the answer? I now hear and use "error" as a verb daily in a globally distributed corporate environment. It's as much a part of our language as any other word, albeit limited to the parlance of computer software. – durette Jul 23 '20 at 13:43
12

I've seen it enough in computing contexts that I consider it acceptable there. I wouldn't use it in other domains myself, though, except possibly in a geeky tongue-in-cheek way (e.g., "my DVD player errored out on that scratched disk.")

MaxN
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    We programmers like to misuse words in this way. – Umbrella Jul 22 '14 at 20:33
  • I would not describe this as a misuse - in computing jargon, 'to error' is a verb, and 'errored' is naturally the past tense. Hard to say if this will become a general change in usage, or remain jargon of a particular industry. – LeBleu Apr 28 '15 at 17:32
  • "to error out" is not the same as "to error", just as "to poop out" is not the same as "to poop". – Theodore Norvell Nov 17 '18 at 12:43
11

To use "errored" you would have to consider error a verb, but the dictionary doesn't. "Error" is a noun, used to mean mistake. You wouldn't say "The program mistaked at line 44."

Your usage "threw an error" is correct, because it uses error as a noun.

hjd
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    I have two problems with this answer. One is that lots of nouns become verbed, and often the new coining is immediately understandable (viz Calvin and Hobbes: "Verbing weirds language"). Two, dictionaries don't contain all possible words or all possible uses of words. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Sep 15 '10 at 15:56
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    A lot of nouns are indeed used as verbs and the English language is dying horribly as a result. We don't need to add to the problem if we can avoid it. – Brian Hooper Sep 15 '10 at 16:21
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    I regard it as a great strength of English that it is not afraid to use nouns as adjectives or verbs, verb forms as nouns or adjectives, interjections as nouns, etc. Not every language is anywhere as flexible. I think we should embrace or at least accept such peculiarities rather than fight them. – RegDwigнt Sep 15 '10 at 19:59
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    I agree with Mr. Shiny and New. Here's a nice article on verbing. And no, the language is not dying—it's completely alive and kicking, even more so due to this phenomenon. – Jonik Sep 15 '10 at 20:17
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    Just because English frequently allows verbing, doesn't mean it always does. Not every noun can be used as a verb and still be considered "correct." – Joel Spolsky Sep 17 '10 at 03:06
  • Which came first the language or the dictionary? Whether the word is in the dictionary depends upon the corpus the dictionary was compiled from and a number of editorial decisions. As such I don't think we can use them as a definitive specification of a language and the idea that there is a "correct" usage is a bit absurd. The only real question is will the reader understand the meaning. – Martin Brown Nov 30 '16 at 16:48
  • You wouldn't say "mistaked" because the past tense of the verb "mistake" is "mistook". – Stuart F Aug 18 '21 at 09:29
6

You may choose one of the following options:

  • The program returned an error at line 44
  • The program generated an error at line 44
  • The program encountered an error at line 44
  • The program reached an error at line 44
  • The program gave an error at line 44
Mehper C. Palavuzlar
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Within programming circles, I'd say that "errored" is a perfectly fine term to use. It seems to be fairly widely understood as a verb form for "error". Outside of computing, I'd probably avoid it. You generally won't hear someone say "Todd errored on his test". It's a field-specific bit of terminology.

That being said, while discussing things within the field of computing, I'd prefer "the program errored/failed/crashed" over "erred", as some others have suggested. Any of those would be concise and make sense.

I would also prefer the options above over "The program threw an error" in informal settings, simply for the fact that it's less wordy, unless the focus of the statement was how exactly the program did the throwing. In technical documents, "threw an error" might be preferable to "errored".

KChaloux
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    "The program threw an error" (or an exception) is to me more specific while not being inordinately wordy. "Errored" sounds like non-native speech. – Robusto Apr 08 '12 at 13:02
  • I suppose it depends on who you're talking to. I'm a native speaker and it sounds fine to me, but I know several people (myself included) who have a propensity to "verb words" as described in the Calvin and Hobbes comic linked above. – KChaloux Apr 10 '12 at 12:28
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    Verbing nouns (a.k.a. conversion) is common in English. This particular case sounds to me like something a non-native speaker would say. – Robusto Apr 10 '12 at 12:31
  • +1 This is common computer jargon, but I wouldn't use it outside the field. – Chris Sunami Aug 25 '15 at 20:58
1

You can say

the program threw an error

though I'd be more inclined to use "caused", as "threw" sounds a little odd (though it is used in the context of exceptions in C++).

(You might also want to provide a more information than merely saying that an error has occurred!)

Steve Melnikoff
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    "threw" is used in the context of any language that has exceptions (Java, Python, C++, etc) ... personally, I use "errored" quite frequently (and not just in my professional field) – warren Sep 16 '10 at 02:27
0

Yes, some programmers use it. Yes, particularly non-native English speakers (IME). And yes, usage rules! There's no English Academy judging. Check back in 20 years, to see how comfortable it seems to you then.

But no, it's generally not the best way to express what's meant. A better way, about as succinct, and easier to parse: "raises an error" and "raised an error", instead of "errors" and "errored".

Just "errors" can interfere with easy understanding (parsing), because of possible interpretation as the noun.

Drew
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Personally, I prefer to say "the program failed at line 44", although I really like "the program erred at line 44" as suggested by Shinto Sherlock above :).

Gaurav
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-4

Outside of the context of computer programs. errored is common expression in legal documents. For example, "We find the lower court erred in finding Larry Flint guilty of causing undue pain and suffering of Jerry Falwell"

Billy ONeal
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    lawyers love inventing new ways of saying simple things to make it seem fancy. I'm pretty sure that most legal documents would say "erred," not "errored." – Joel Spolsky Sep 17 '10 at 03:07
  • @Joel. 1. bows 2. Good point. Fixed. The spelling is different but the intent is the same and therefore I'm leaving it as an answer. – Billy ONeal Sep 17 '10 at 05:06