All 12 Uses of
competent
in
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- He prefers to let a competent mechanic take care of these things so that they are done right.†
Part 1 *competent = sufficiently capable
- Any instructor who does not should keep this fact carefully concealed, for this would certainly constitute proof of incompetence.†
Part 3incompetence = inability to do things sufficientlystandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in incompetence means not and reverses the meaning of competence. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- However, that little parenthetic statement about inability to define Quality as proof of incompetence did raise eyebrows within the department.†
Part 3
- He could hold off the attack for a while with fancy dialectical footwork and insults about competence and incompetence, but sooner or later he had to come up with something more substantial than that.†
Part 3competence = ability
- He could hold off the attack for a while with fancy dialectical footwork and insults about competence and incompetence, but sooner or later he had to come up with something more substantial than that.†
Part 3incompetence = inability to do things sufficientlystandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in incompetence means not and reverses the meaning of competence. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- He had already done this with his statement that lack of knowledge of what Quality is constitutes incompetence.†
Part 3
- It's an old rule of logic that the competence of a speaker has no relevance to the truth of what he says, and so talk of incompetence was pure sand.†
Part 3competence = ability
- It's an old rule of logic that the competence of a speaker has no relevance to the truth of what he says, and so talk of incompetence was pure sand.†
Part 3incompetence = inability to do things sufficientlystandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in incompetence means not and reverses the meaning of competence. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- Socrates, that ancient enemy of rhetorical argument, would have sent Phaedrus flying for this one, saying, "Yes, I accept your premise that I'm incompetent on the matter of Quality.†
Part 3incompetent = not sufficiently capablestandard prefix: The prefix "in-" in incompetent means not and reverses the meaning of competent. This is the same pattern you see in words like invisible, incomplete, and insecure.
- Now please show an incompetent old man what Quality is.†
Part 3
- Phaedrus would have been allowed to stew around for a few minutes, and then been flattened with questions that proved he didn't know what Quality was either and was, by his own standards, incompetent.†
Part 3
- You're incompetent.†
Part 3
Definitions:
-
(1)
(competent) capable (able to do something in a generally satisfactory manner) -- sometimes specifically to have legal capability
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
In the field of law, competent has the specialized meaning of being legally qualified to do something such as to be mentally fit to make reasonable decisions; or to have jurisdiction or authority to take an action.
In classic literature, a competency can refer to having an income or assets to support living expenses.