"I'm going to give it a hundred and ten percent"

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maybe i just watch too many reality TV shows but this phrase, which was always an annyong cliché, has become completely ubiquitous. it seems now, though, that 110% is no longer enough. in the last few weeks i've seen people on TV claim they are going to give it 150%, 200%, 500%, a thousand percent and on one show i saw a woman claim she was going to give it "a million percent"!

great british public - get a new cliché, please.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:06 (twenty years ago)

one googleplex percent

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:07 (twenty years ago)

you forgot a billion percent

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

i didn't forget it, i've just not jeard anyone say it yet.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

not before i take it up a level.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:14 (twenty years ago)

I'm going to give this thread -120% of my attention.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:15 (twenty years ago)

"I'm going to give it a hundred and ten percent"

why would you want to do that, it's never appreciated.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)

raise your game, step up a gear.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:19 (twenty years ago)

http://fisharepeopletoo.blogs.com/1/images/SpinalTap-thumb.jpg

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:20 (twenty years ago)

Go at the B of the bang.

― Come Back Johnny B (Johnney B), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

grab the bull by the horns!?!

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

AT THE END OF THE DAY, bitching about cliches is fucking cliched.

― g-kit (g-kit), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:22 (twenty years ago)

i kind of wish i'd used "I'M NOT BEING FUNNY, BUT..." now

― g-kit (g-kit), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:23 (twenty years ago)

i'm not bitching about the cliché (there are lots of threads on here about that sort of language) i'm just genuinely amazed at how this particular one has taken on a life of its own in the last year or so.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

"to infinity and beyond"
"forever and a day"
"everything and more"

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

"in this day and age"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:30 (twenty years ago)

in this week and millenium!!

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:31 (twenty years ago)

or make that "month and era"!

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:31 (twenty years ago)

It's totally inefficient to give something 110%, when all that's required is 100%, so why boast about it?

― Oh No, It's Dadaismus (and His Endless Stupid Jokes) (Dada), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:36 (twenty years ago)

And mostly the people who say it are not going to give even 50 percent.

― Nathalie, the Queen of Frock 'n' Fall (stevie nixed), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:42 (twenty years ago)

"I'M NOT BEING FUNNY, BUT..."

my mum uses this all the time, it drives me insane. i swear on day i'll punch her.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

threatening to beat up your old lady is such a cliche.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

what if it's your old lady's pussy?

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

Referring to your mum your old lady is such a cliche. We know she's bitch.
And considering her age, it's not a pussy. More a tattered wasted carpet.

;-)

― Nathalie, the Queen of Frock 'n' Fall (stevie nixed), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/images_features/pifcharley_04.jpg

― Oh No, It's Dadaismus (and His Endless Stupid Jokes) (Dada), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

i just meant her cat!!!!

oh man my innocence is shattered

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

"to be perfectly honest with you", i don't hear 110% that often.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

xpost

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

Henry, you should watch more reality TV.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

No he shouldn't

― Oh No, It's Dadaismus (and His Endless Stupid Jokes) (Dada), Friday, 11 November 2005 15:53 (twenty years ago)

i just meant her cat!!!!

So did I! I mean the kitty had died and mummy made a carpet out of it. WHAT ELSE????

― Nathalie, the Queen of Frock 'n' Fall (stevie nixed), Friday, 11 November 2005 16:00 (twenty years ago)

"a billion per cent" was by BB:5's craig

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 11 November 2005 16:02 (twenty years ago)

shortly followed by having a po-faced wank

― g-kit (g-kit), Friday, 11 November 2005 16:04 (twenty years ago)

i resent the implication that i don't watch reality tv.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 11 November 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

In college a friend and I brainstormed an "Excellence Club" which would host such lectures as "115%: How to Give More Than Better Than Your Best"

(we even dreamed up a by-year line graph that showed the 1980s at 100%, the 1990s at 110%, and the 2000s at 115% (at which point, of course, the line broke through the top of the graph)

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 11 November 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

but they say house prices have risen 200%, or whatever. all it means is you've discovered greater capacity than you have before.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Friday, 11 November 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

Life is fair.

-Andy

There, I just rendered a much beloved parental phrase obsolete! Better not hear is again.

― andy --, Friday, 11 November 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

I guess there's nothing technically incorrect about saying "I'm going to give it 110%" or even "a billion percent" since you never specify what the percentage is based on - 110% of what? The meaning could be, I'm going to give 110% of the amount of effort I usually give. In which case this could still be well below the theoretical maximum effort that one could expend.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 11 November 2005 17:44 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, when athletes say they're going to give 110% I like to take it as an admission that they were previously working at like 60% of total capacity, and are just now willing to bump it up to 66%, if they absolutely have to.

That said I've become kind of entranced by the way there are certain types of discourse (athlete interviews, corporate talk) where people actually do communicate small coherent thoughts in the form of long strings of cliches. It's like that Next Generation episode where Picard is on the planet where they only communicate via metaphors and allusions to their particular founding myth. I think I've talked about this on every George Saunders thread ever, though.

Yesterday I was proofreading transcripts of [high-level official in blue-chip corporation] talking about "innovation," and he was a master of the associative string!

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 11 November 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

Kind of like an argument consisting entirely of the word "dude". Sample dialog (picture two Bill & Ted type dudes):

"Dude."
"Duuuude."
"Dude."
"DUDE."
"Dude."
"Dude."
etc...

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 11 November 2005 17:52 (twenty years ago)

but they say house prices have risen 200%, or whatever. all it means is you've discovered greater capacity than you have before.

-- Theorry Henry (miltonpinsk...), November 11th, 2005.

Uh, no. If you discover greater capacity than you had before, and you use all of it, you're still giving 100%.

When housing prices go up 200% that just means they've tripled - it's a totally different thing. Take one math class.

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 11 November 2005 21:51 (twenty years ago)

when did "twentyfour-seven" became so commonplace? it's been around as slang for a while now, but i'm seeing it in bank ads etc. without qualifiers or *wink wink* "we're talking your language" airs or anything.

― Kim (Kim), Friday, 11 November 2005 22:01 (twenty years ago)

Hurting, we are choosing to comically interpret the statement as: "We just have to go out there and give 110% (of the half-assed partial effort we gave last week)." I.e. say I pee on your head using 400 ml of urine, and you're not sufficiently annoyed, I might say "next time I'm giving 110%," and then that time I'd dump 440 ml of urine on your head (from my total bladder capacity of 700 ml).

NB I have no mental concept of how much a mililiter is, so hopefully I'm not claiming to have a bladder like a hippo / thimble.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 11 November 2005 22:59 (twenty years ago)

You're in the right area, Nabisco - 700ml is about a pint and a quarter. I suspect that's a little high, but I'm not sure.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 11 November 2005 23:05 (twenty years ago)

I've started using this, in a roundabout way. When I tell people they need to spend 60% of their time on project X and 50% on project L. When they question my math - I respond that we're all supposed to be giving 110%. I am not an avid Dilbert reader. Not many people get how much I hate corporate speak.

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Friday, 11 November 2005 23:09 (twenty years ago)

"to be perfectly honest with you"
-- Theorry Henry

= to be perfectly dishonest with myself

― moley, Friday, 11 November 2005 23:39 (twenty years ago)

Kind of like an argument consisting entirely of the word "dude". Sample dialog (picture two Bill & Ted type dudes):

This actually happened in "Baseketball!

― monkeybutler, Saturday, 12 November 2005 00:26 (twenty years ago)

i thought it was like a nerd detector test, you know? like

"I'm going to give it a hundred and ten percent!"

"Ha Ha! Technically you can't give more than 100%. That would belie Giorgio Chiarino's 15th century mathematical use of its Italian origin 'per cento'!"

"Ah ha! I knew it!"

― sunny successor (he hates my guts, we had a fight) (katharine), Saturday, 12 November 2005 00:57 (twenty years ago)

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