The notion of inadequate is used to refer to that which is not appropriate . Adequate, in turn, is what is appropriate or what adapts to someone's needs or the requirements of a particular project, among other possibilities.
When something is inappropriate, therefore, it is inconvenient or improper . Let's look at some example sentences: "The teacher was sanctioned by the school directors due to the use of inappropriate language in front of his students" , "The inappropriate use of technology exposes human beings to great risks" , "From the “The government considers that the strike is inappropriate since the salary negotiations have not yet concluded.”
Inadequacy, in short, is something that is not indicated, suggested or convenient . When a person cooks, for example, they must pay attention to the handling of food to avoid contamination. It is inappropriate to use a wooden board to cut raw meat and then, without cleaning the knife or board, cut tomatoes and onions on the same surface to prepare a salad. This action can cause so-called cross contamination , transferring bacteria present in the blood from the raw meat to the tomato and onion.
It is inappropriate, on the other hand, for the president of a country to use derogatory terms to refer to citizens who did not vote for him. The president is the representative of all the inhabitants of his nation and fulfills an institutional role that goes beyond political parties. Therefore, speaking with contempt or aggressively about those who do not think like him is inappropriate.
If we look for the term inappropriate in a thesaurus, we find the following list: inappropriate , improper, contraindicated, inadmissible, inconvenient, counterproductive, incorrect and inopportune . Regarding its antonyms, we can cite the following three: appropriate, convenient and, of course, adequate .
Among the synonyms just mentioned it is possible to notice certain nuances that allow us to classify them into a minimum of two groups: on the one hand there are those that speak of "something that is wrong", while the rest refer to "something that cannot bring good results." From another point of view, this means that some of the synonyms for inappropriate focus on "the thing" and others on "the effect ."
Let's look at some cases below to graph both nuances. If we return to the example of the teacher who speaks with a certain language in front of his students, we can say that his vocabulary is inappropriate, inappropriate or incorrect , since it is not the one that meets the standards of the educational system. On the other hand, we have the case of the use of technology that can entail risks, since it is counterproductive, inconvenient or contraindicated .
In short, something inappropriate never brings good results, regardless of the part of the process it most affects. However, a teacher who uses inappropriate words harms students before hindering the system to which he belongs, while misuse of technology does not entail especially negative consequences halfway but blocks progress.
An inadequate individual, on the other hand, may be unproductive in a particular area or even be negative within a certain group, among many other possibilities. We can also say that someone is inadequate for another person on an emotional level, since they hurt them and do not understand them, for example. Just like procedures and actions, an inadequate being is not the correct one for a given area, its presence does not bring the best results and therefore it should not be there.