It's the combination of having a very strong personality with a surprising technical ability.

He had discovered a surprising ability in himself.

"The company has a surprising ability to generate profits at a far lower sales rate than ever before."

Borders do well in task-oriented activities and have a surprising ability to jump high and run fast given the size of their legs.

The result seems to demonstrate the surprising ability of a uniform material to concentrate energy spontaneously.

This year, Sundance came back with a surprising ability to laugh, sometimes at itself.

But politicians have already demonstrated a surprising ability to force the commission to change course, despite the implications for its independence.

By this time people were marveling at Data's surprising ability, but there were no complaints, as it was an even match.

A surprising ability demonstrated by H.M. is that he can learn a skill and have no memory of learning it.

The key idea in the book is that simple, byte-size programs have the surprising ability to produce endlessly intricate behavior.