"
Up to eleven" or "
these go to eleven" is an
idiomAn idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has figurative meaning — its implication comprehended only through common use; whereas the literal definition of the idiom, itself, does not communicate its meaning as a figurative usage.In linguistics, idioms are usually presumed to be figures of...
from
popular culturePopular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture...
which has come to refer to anything being exploited to its utmost abilities, or apparently exceeding them, such as a
sound volumeLoudness is the quality of a sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical strength .Loudness, a subjective measure, is often confused with objective measures of sound pressure such as decibels or sound intensity. Filters such as A-weighting attempt to adjust sound measurements to...
control. Similarly, the expression "turning it up to eleven" may refer to the act of taking something to an extreme. In 2002 the phrase entered the
Shorter Oxford English DictionaryThe Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, often abbreviated to SOED, is a scaled-down version of the Oxford English Dictionary. It comprises two volumes rather than the twenty needed for the full second edition of the OED...
with the definition "up to maximum volume."
The phrase was coined in a scene from the 1984
mockumentaryMockumentary or mock documentary is a genre of film and television, or a single work of the genre. Although a mockumentary may be one of the comedy genres, serious mockumentaries also exist. The mockumentary is presented as a documentary recording real life, but is actually fictional. It is a...
/
rockumentaryThe term rockumentary is a neologism denoting a program on television or movie documentary about Rock music or its musicians. It is a portmanteau of the words "rock" and "documentary." The term was used by Bill Drake in the 1969 History of Rock & Roll radio broadcast, and by Rob Reiner in the...
This Is Spinal TapThis Is Tap is a 1984 mock musical documentary directed by Rob Reiner and starring members of the fictional heavy-metal/hard rock band Spinal Tap...
by the character
Nigel TufnelNigel Tufnel is the fictional lead guitarist of the rock band Spinal Tap featured in the 1984 mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap. He is played by actor Christopher Guest....
, played by
Christopher GuestChristopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest , better known as Christopher Guest, is an American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several "mockumentary" films that feature a...
.
"
Up to eleven" or "
these go to eleven" is an
idiomAn idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has figurative meaning — its implication comprehended only through common use; whereas the literal definition of the idiom, itself, does not communicate its meaning as a figurative usage.In linguistics, idioms are usually presumed to be figures of...
from
popular culturePopular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture...
which has come to refer to anything being exploited to its utmost abilities, or apparently exceeding them, such as a
sound volumeLoudness is the quality of a sound that is the primary psychological correlate of physical strength .Loudness, a subjective measure, is often confused with objective measures of sound pressure such as decibels or sound intensity. Filters such as A-weighting attempt to adjust sound measurements to...
control. Similarly, the expression "turning it up to eleven" may refer to the act of taking something to an extreme. In 2002 the phrase entered the
Shorter Oxford English DictionaryThe Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, often abbreviated to SOED, is a scaled-down version of the Oxford English Dictionary. It comprises two volumes rather than the twenty needed for the full second edition of the OED...
with the definition "up to maximum volume."
The phrase was coined in a scene from the 1984
mockumentaryMockumentary or mock documentary is a genre of film and television, or a single work of the genre. Although a mockumentary may be one of the comedy genres, serious mockumentaries also exist. The mockumentary is presented as a documentary recording real life, but is actually fictional. It is a...
/
rockumentaryThe term rockumentary is a neologism denoting a program on television or movie documentary about Rock music or its musicians. It is a portmanteau of the words "rock" and "documentary." The term was used by Bill Drake in the 1969 History of Rock & Roll radio broadcast, and by Rob Reiner in the...
This Is Spinal TapThis Is Tap is a 1984 mock musical documentary directed by Rob Reiner and starring members of the fictional heavy-metal/hard rock band Spinal Tap...
by the character
Nigel TufnelNigel Tufnel is the fictional lead guitarist of the rock band Spinal Tap featured in the 1984 mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap. He is played by actor Christopher Guest....
, played by
Christopher GuestChristopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest , better known as Christopher Guest, is an American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several "mockumentary" films that feature a...
. In this scene Nigel gives the rockumentary's director, Marty DiBergi, played by
Rob ReinerRobert Norman "Rob" Reiner is an American director, producer, writer, and political activist. As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence as Archie and Edith Bunker's son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic, on All in the Family. That role earned him two Emmy Awards during the 1970s...
, a tour of his stage equipment. While Nigel is showing Marty his
MarshallMarshall Amplification is a British company which designs and manufactures music amplifiers. Marshall is based in Bletchley, Milton Keynes. Marshall amplifiers are well known and highly popular among guitarists...
guitar amplifiersAn instrument amplifier is an electronic amplifier that converts the often barely audible or purely electronic signal from musical instruments such as an electric guitar, an electric bass, or an electric keyboard into an electronic signal capable of driving a loudspeaker that can be heard by the...
, he points out one in particular whose control knobs all have the highest setting of
eleven11 is the natural number following 10 and preceding 12. It is the first number which cannot be represented by a human counting his or her eight fingers and two thumbs additively...
(unlike standard amplifiers, whose volume settings are typically numbered from
zero0 is both a number and the numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals. It plays a central role in mathematics as the additive identity of the integers, real numbers, and many other algebraic structures. As a digit, zero is used as a placeholder in place value systems...
to
ten10 is an even natural number following 9 and preceding 11.-In mathematics:Ten is a composite number, its proper divisors being , and...
), believing that this numbering actually increases the volume of the amp ("It's one louder."). When Marty asks why the ten setting is not simply set to be louder, Nigel pauses, clearly confused, before responding, "But these go to eleven".
Usage in culture
- Some amplifiers did feature a scale that extended beyond ten. Between 1949 and 1964, the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company produced the Fender Champ which had volume settings ranging from one to twelve.
- Klotz Digital
Klotz Digital AG is a manufacturer of audio media products based in Munich, Germany, with subsidiary operations in Australia, Malaysia and the United States.The company is active in the two business segments Public Address and Radio & TV Broadcast....
has produced P/A amplifiers with volume controls marked from zero to eleven. At the product presentation Klotz quoted the famous sentence from "This is Spinal Tap".
- The Vortexion 4/15M mixer made famous by Joe Meek
Joe Meek was a pioneering English record producer and songwriter...
had four large volume controls marked from zero to eleven. An image of this model of mixer appears on the cover of "Blacker" by Radio Massacre InternationalRadio Massacre International are a trio of British musicians, Steve Dinsdale , Duncan Goddard , and Gary Houghton . They specialize in improvisational experimental electronic music, utilizing vintage synthesizers and sampled sounds alongside electric guitar. They are also leading exponents of the...
.
- Marshall Amplification
Marshall Amplification is a British company which designs and manufactures music amplifiers. Marshall is based in Bletchley, Milton Keynes. Marshall amplifiers are well known and highly popular among guitarists...
introduced the JCM900 amplifier in 1990 with knobs going to twenty. Christopher Guest, playing Nigel Tufnel, participated in the marketing for this amplifier; appearing at the publicity party for the product as well as in magazine advertisements. His catch phrase on the print advertising was "That's nine more, innit?". Nigel claimed to also have a special model that goes to infinity, with the knob spinning around and around as though it's broken.
- The BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer is a service available via website, P2P, cable television, and several mobile devices developed by the BBC to extend its existing RealPlayer-based "Radio Player" and other streamed video clip content...
has a volume control that goes from zero to eleven.
- Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player is a digital media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
11 promo on http://microsoft.com said "Turn it up to 11" and pictured the WMP 11 play button surrounded by numbers and tick marks, making it into a dial that ends at 11.
- A scene insert in the 2008 film, Anvil! The Story of Anvil
Anvil! The Story of Anvil is a 2008 documentary film about the Canadian heavy metal band, Anvil. The film is directed by screenwriter Sacha Gervasi, whose previous credits include The Big Tease and The Terminal....
, features an amplifier knob to eleven, turned by Anvil's Dover producer.
- The cloud infrastructure
Cloud computing is the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualised resources as a service over the Internet on a utility basis. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them...
company ilandiland is a VMware, Inc., Citrix, and Dell partner and provider of virtualization infrastructure and cloud computing services such as disaster recovery and desktop virtualization as well as traditional colocation and hybrid cloud solutions for enterprise, mid-market, and startup companies...
has T-shirts that read "My cloud goes to eleven."
- Facedown Records
Facedown Records is a Christian record label based in Fallbrook, California, devoted mostly to hardcore punk and metalcore bands . Founded by No Innocent Victim drummer Jason Dunn, the label started off small with a number of 7" record releases by bands such as Overcome, Dodgin Bullets, and Born...
released a shirt that stated "Cranking It To 11 Since 97." The label was formed in 1997.
- In the comic book miniseries JLA/Avengers
JLA/Avengers is a comic book limited series and crossover published in prestige format by DC Comics and Marvel Comics from September 2003 to May 2004. The series was written by Kurt Busiek, with art by George Perez...
, SupermanSuperman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective Comics, Inc...
remarks to ThorThor is a fictional character that appears in publications published by Marvel Comics. The character first appears in Journey into Mystery #83 and was created by writer-editor Stan Lee; scripter Larry Lieber and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby....
that in his worldThe DC Universe is the shared universe where most of the comic stories published by DC Comics take place. The fictional characters Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are well-known superheroes from this universe. Note that in context, "DC Universe" is usually used to refer to the main DC continuity...
, the dials "go up to eleven".
- On the TV show House
A house is generally a shelter, building or structure that is a dwelling or place for habitation by human beings. The term includes many kinds of dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to high-rise apartment buildings...
, House remarks to Wilson "I'm an addict. I turn everything up to eleven" and "I was trying to find something I could set at eleven without blowing out my eardrums."