Is the word "unbelievable" positive or negative?
Do you get a positive or negative impression when “unbelievable” is used as an answer to these questions?
1 – How’s work going?... Unbelievable.
2 – How’s your mom doing?... Unbelievable.
3 – How’s the service at the new restaurant?... Unbelievable.
4 – How’s the food at the new restaurant?... Unbelievable.
5 – How did the family reunion go?... Unbelievable.
6 – How did the job interview go?... Unbelievable.
7 – How are the kids doing?... Unbelievable.
8 – How was your vacation?... Unbelievable.
9 – How was your flight?... Unbelievable.
10 – How’s your project going?... Unbelievable.
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12 Answers
I’d usually perceive it as negative, unless for some reason you were expecting something to go really poorly; then the ‘unbelievable’ result would be having it actually be amazing.
It’s really ambiguous unless you use it as an adverb with a clarifying adjective afterwards: unbelievably amazing, unbelievably disastrous.
I would need more context before trying to decide.
As @Jak says, it depends on context:
Unbelievable good fortune. Positive.
Unbelievable stupidity. Negative.
Unbelievable gall, Negative.
But sometimes it’s a bit vague:
Unbelievable amount of rain. Probably means more rain rather than less but could mean less.
And in addition, further context would decide; after a drought – lots of rain would be positive, a fine misting would be negative.
I honestly never thought about it. Good question! I agree with what the jellies said said but I really think it has to do with the tone of your voice. Like @Jak and @Pachy said, the context with the tone of one’s voice would make it either a positive or a negative connotation.
Someone claimed that “unbelievable” was a reasonable placeholder word to prevent the standard “good” or “bad”, “ok”, “all right” answers. Supposedly, it can go either way, protecting the answerer from actually committing, or casting a judgement.
To me, the word “unbelievable,” like “awesome” and “great”, are overused and largely meaningless words. There are so many synonyms for all three that are preferable.
It depends on context, if you can believe that.
Context and tone are both important here.
If I, personally, made the statements given in the example, they would all be positive. It’s just how I use “unbelievable”.
I agree with @Tbag that the tone of voice generally determines the whether others are using “unbelievable” in a negative way.
I got an believable deal at auction.
That guy paid HOW MUCH for that? Unbelievable.
It can be either a positive or negative. In written word, it depends upon the punctuation used. In all of the statements used in the OP, it comes across as a negative (sarcastic) due to the word followed by a period. Substitute the period with an exclamation point, and it becomes a positive meaning.
The same is applied when it comes to the emphasis/emotion used to say the word.
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