Have you ever wondered how great “ good ” really is ? Or how terrible “ abysmal ” is compare to , say , “ fearful ” ?
Well question no more , as a survey from UK - based pollster YouGov has endeavour to reply the enquiry . They gave about1,000 peoplea list of 24 adjectives , and asked them to rate their positivity by hold each one a score from zero ( very negative ) to 10 ( very positive ) .
“ Go denounce online and just about everything you face at will have a star rating based on reviews by former customer , ” Matthew Smithwrote for YouGov . “ Alas , it is less light to measure things in such a way in day - to - day life – if for representative your acquaintance was review a production to you , where would their description accrue on the star scale ? ”
And the results were interesting . At the bottom of the scale , the five most electronegative term were see to be " abysmal " ( 1.21 ) , " direful " ( 1.72 ) , " terrible " ( 1.75 ) , " very bad " ( 1.76 ) , and " really sorry " ( 1.85 ) .
The most positive terminus was deemed to be " incredible " , scoring a reasonably incredible 8.81 , followed by " brilliant " ( 8.77 ) , " superb " ( 8.77 ) , " fantastic " ( 8.74 ) , and then a turn of a drop to " very good " ( 7.90 ) .
Of the middling term , " fair " scored 5.09 , take for to be slightly unspoiled than " mediocre " at 4.29 . " Not bad " scored a not bad 5.13 , with " OK " just above on 5.51 .
“ However it is worth observe that ‘ average ’ is a much unspoiled word to practice as a mid - point on a thought exfoliation , as 66 per centum of answerer score the word a 5 on the scale , liken to only 33 percent who did for ‘ not bad ’ , " Smith noted .
Perhaps most surprising was the rating for " great " at 7.76 . It fall below " really good " on 7.78 and " very good " on 7.9 which just seems kind of odd to us . " Good " and " bad " were also obtain not to be mirrors of each other , as " good " was hold to be less good as " uncollectible " was bad . If that makes gumption .
In fact , many of the mirror terms – such as " pretty good " compare to " pretty regretful " – had a exchangeable pattern . hoi polloi range the well term less positive than the bad term was negative .
So there you have it . If something is the best it can be , practice incredible . The opposite , pluck for abyssal . And if it ’s bang average , then average should be fine . OK , even .
