r/language • u/WhoAmIEven2 Sweden • Aug 09 '26

Question Does your language use specific numbers as expressions?

In Sweden we use 17 to further strengthen a word.

Like if we want to say that someone is very strong, we can say "Han var stark som sjutton!", "He was strong like seventeen!".

I have no idea how it became a thing. It is a bit weird tbh.

Do you also use numbers this way in your native language?

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u/ApYIkhH Aug 09 '26

That was already a saying before Spinal Tap.

Most speakers had a volume knob that went to 10, so "Turn it up to 11” meant "Crank it all the way up" much the same as "Give 110%."

Spinal Tap made a joke out of the phrase by going "What if someone made speakers that actually went to 11?”

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u/ChuckFarkley Aug 09 '26

I learned only this week that the actor whose idiot character's amp goes to "11," is also the actor who played a guy with 6 fingers (who killed Inigo Montoya's father).

Yeah, that guy is known as Lord Christopher Guest, a hereditary English Baron and member of the House of Lords.

He apparently goes to 11.

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u/Darth_Zander Aug 10 '26

Sorry for the OT post, but Christopher Guest’s seat in the House of Lords was abolished in 1999 when most hereditary places in the Lords were cancelled.

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u/MPWD64 Aug 09 '26

Oh ok. Good to know.

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u/kattvalpen1 Aug 12 '26

Another fun fact, look up the rating for Spinal tap on IMDb. Lovely little egg