Up to eleven

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"Up to eleven" or "These go to eleven" is an idiom from popular culture which has come to refer to anything capable of being exploited to its utmost abilities, or to exceed them, such as a sound volume 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 Dictionary with the definition "up to maximum volume." ^[1]

The phrase was coined in a scene from the 1984 mockumentary rockumentary This is Spinal Tap by the character Nigel Tufnel, played by Christopher Guest. In this scene Nigel gives the rockumentary's director, Marty DiBergi, played by Rob Reiner, a tour of his stage equipment. While Nigel is showing Marty his guitar amplifiers, he points out one in particular whose control knobs all have the highest setting of eleven (unlike standard amplifiers, whose volume settings are typically numbered from zero to ten), believing that this numbering actually makes the amp louder. When Marty asks why the ten setting is not simply set to be louder, Nigel pauses, clearly confused, before responding with the now famous phrase, "These go to eleven." ^[2] ^[3]

The referenced scene from This is Spinal Tap:

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...

Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?

Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.

Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi: I don't know.

Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?

Nigel Tufnel: [pause, blank look and snapping chewing gum] These go to eleven.

[edit] Usage in culture

Curiously, the idea of an amplifier with a volume settings higher than 10 was not new. Between the years of 1949 and 1964, the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company produced the Fender Champ which had volume settings ranging from one to twelve.^[4]

Marshall Amplification 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?". An example of this advert can still be found stuck to the desk at Modern Music, Truro, Cornwall, a long-time Marshall dealer. The company also manufactures faceplates for all of its amplifiers with settings to eleven.^[5]

Other uses include:

Phazon, a manufacturer and installer of custom sound systems for nightclubs and lounges, introduced recently the SDX 3700 DJ mixer, with each of the six input channels going to 11, as well as the booth output, the headphone output, and the main output.^[6]

The computer operating system ZETA displays the system volume settings as going between 1 and 11.

Also in ZETA the preview text in the Appearance preference panel reads: "But . . . these amps go up to: 11" (the default text size)

The title of The Smithereens' CD 11 was inspired by the movie's line. The CD liner notes read, "This one goes to 11."

Stephen Colbert alluded to the line on The Colbert Report, saying that pharmaceutical companies are creating super-kids. The text then read, "This child go to eleven"

In the video game Guitar Hero, the loading screen depicts an amplifier with three knobs that slowly all turn to 11 as the song is loaded. Also, one of the many loading screen blurbs is "11 IS louder than ten".

In Toy Story 2, when Buzz Lightyear and Emperor Zurg battle on the elevator, Zurg's arm-gun is seen to be on its highest setting; 11.

In one of their many pop culture related ads, restaurant chain Chipotle claims "Our burritos go to eleven."

The giant guitar outside the Hard Rock Cafe at Universal Studios has knobs going up to eleven.

Video game publisher Working Designs' slogan was "Our games go to 11!"

The z-5500 logitech speaker system has an "easter egg/boost mode" where if you keep turning the volume up after the volume is at maximum level, it enters "boost mode" with 11 extra volume increments.

The SlimServer software for the Squeezebox music player has volume settings that go to 11.

Band XI International, an agile software development company, refers to the scene by using the Roman numerals for eleven in their name.

On the Food Network program Good Eats, one segment on toasters included one character boasting that his personal toaster "had 11 settings." Another character asks him why he doesn't merely make the seventh setting more intense. He indignantly replies, "But it goes to 11!".

On the P. D. Q. Bach album WTWP: Classical Talkity-Talk Radio" (Telarc, 1991), Professor Peter Schickele threatens to subdue an unruly radio station employee by turning the volume in the studio "all the way up to 11!"

In the Comic book JLA/Avengers, when the two heroic teams battled, Superman controversially beat Thor, exclaiming that "in my universe, the dials go to 11!"

In July 2006, Microsoft.com featured a promo for Windows Media Player 11 that said to "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.

Apple Computer uses the line "This One Goes to 11" in its overview of its implementation of X11.^[7]

All the knobs on the popular MIDI controller Keyfax Phatboy are labelled 0-10, with the exception of volume, which goes up to eleven.

UK TV channel E4 featured a promo for E4 Music, with the phrase turn it up to eleven.

The browser-based RPG Kingdom of Loathing has a mind-control device with settings going up to eleven, one of dozens of references in the game to the number 11.

Christopher Guest, who played the character that coined the phrase, later appeared as the eleven-fingered Count Rugen in The Princess Bride.

In a Heavy-Metal themed fight on an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch between James Hetfield and Fred Durst, the referee Mills Lane remarks before starting the match: "I want a good clean fight. And remember: this one goes to eleven."

A Powerpuff Girls episode shows the girls training in a Danger Room like facility in the Professor's lab. The "difficulty" dial looks exactly like the one on a guitar, and goes all the way to 11. Later in the episode, Bubbles is zapped by a laser with an intensity dial which looks exactly like the previous one. When she is rescued, the girls exclaim, "Whoah! She took the laser all the way to 11!"

In the episode TB or Not TB of the popular TV show House, House plays with a testing machine, asking "does this go up to 11?".

Due to the ongoing popularity of the film, many of its phrases have entered the pop cultural lexicon. Judging by the prevalence of the use of the phrase "these go to eleven" in contexts other than musical, this phrase has become the most popular.