"Up to eleven", also phrased as "these go to eleven", is an idiom from popular culture, coined in the 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap, where guitarist Nigel Tufnel demonstrates an amplifier whose volume knobs are marked from zero to eleven, instead of the usual zero to ten.
In 2002, the phrase entered the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary with the definition "up to maximum volume".[1]
- ^ Hamilton, Alan (September 26, 2002). "Tardis lands in dictionary of today". Times Online. Archived from the original on January 7, 2006. Retrieved June 7, 2014.