Timeline for Are “inept” and “incompetent” synonyms?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 19, 2021 at 10:57 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jul 20, 2021 at 2:27 | |||||
| Aug 23, 2020 at 15:58 | vote | accept | Giacomo1968 | ||
| Aug 23, 2020 at 8:11 | comment | added | BoldBen | @jim I think that ineptitude can be the result of one or more of attention deficit, laziness, the inability to grasp the wider sweep of the task, an over-attention to minutiae and so on. If someone, a competent joiner for example, is employed as a project manager their ineptitude caused by the inability to grasp the scope of the project would make them an incompetent project manager so the concepts are closely related. | |
| Aug 23, 2020 at 0:03 | comment | added | Jim | @BoldBen - it’s funny because I agree with your first sentence. i would describe it as “If they know what they have to do but just can’t seem to do it well because they are awkward, clumsy,etc they are inept. If they don’t know what they’re doing, they’re incompetent. That’s the sense on intellectual vs physical I’m thinking of. Your example seems to me to be not one of ineptitude but of laziness, or attention deficit or something similar. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 23:29 | comment | added | BoldBen | @jim Strangely I have almost the opposite interpretation. I see a person's incompetence as being a lack of technical skill but their ineptitude as the inability to apply the skills they have (however inadequate) to the task in hand. For instance someone could be a perfectly competent joiner in terms of their woodworking skills but be unable to persist at the tasks required to build a wooden house. As such they would be a competent joiner but an inept house builder. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 22:23 | answer | added | Philip Wood | timeline score: 3 | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 18:55 | review | Close votes | |||
| Sep 10, 2020 at 3:01 | |||||
| Aug 22, 2020 at 17:52 | comment | added | Jim | I tend to match incompetence with intellectual ability and ineptness with physical ability. | |
| Aug 22, 2020 at 17:46 | history | asked | Giacomo1968 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |