So if someone says this to you, do you take it to mean they feel twice as good as yesterday(200%?) or that they feel back to normal?
Perhaps this is just an incorrect way of expressing the way they are feeling.
I interpret it as meaning back to full capacity. No, it’s not consistent with other uses of percentages, but people are inconsistent sometimes.
They felt crappy yesterday, they feel better today. They aren’t trying to convey anything meaningful in terms of percentages. It’s a perfectly correct manner of idiomatic expression.
I feel 100% better after I quit trying to give %110.
As other’s have said, I’d interpret this to me they are 100% back to normal.
I’d always take people at their word, unless I ask for details and they contradict or expand on what they said.
So if someone said “100% better”, then they’re twice as good as yesterday. If not, I would hope they’d find another way to say it. “Man, I was down to 90%, but now I’m fine” is NOT 100% better.
I think we’re used to expressing things in percentages, thanks to our grading system. Now, if someone said “I was afraid I was going to flunk. I got a 40% on the test, but I met with the teacher and explained my answers. and got a 100% better grade.” I’d assume it had been raised to 80%. Not 100%.
If I asked a sick person “Back to normal?” and they said “Yeah, I was functioning at 50% yesterday, but today I’m 100% better. Feel great!”, then I’d think they’re back to normal.
I’d parse it as “100% of the ways I could be better”, that is, in their best possible health. Akin to “My car is 100% fixed” = “I’ve fixed 100% of the problems with my car” = “My car is running normally”. Most people don’t understand percentages well enough to know why the phrasing would be misleading.
Missed the edit:
This thread’s title ends with
After I went back and read that, I’m going to go with “This’ll be confusing either way, given that people don’t have a hard rule of how to interpret it.” So I think I’ll avoid rating myself in terms of percentages, especially 100% (and, sorry coach, I will no longer be giving 110%).
Like I’d avoid “There were *literally *100 ambulances in my yard!”
I’d interpret it to mean both those things. Yesterday, I was ill/underslept/etc. and at 50% capacity. Now I’m back to 100%–that is, normal. That’s a 100% improvement over yesterday.
Unless there is an objective way to quantify feelings that I’m not aware of, it has to be an idiom where the 100% has no literal meaning.
I hope I’ll be able to say the same thing tomorrow when I wake up…
I take it to mean the same thing as when someone says, “I feel like a million bucks!”
That is, I’m not expecting them to buy the house a round of drinks. 100% just means “the best that I can feel,” or something along those lines.
I don’t get it. “Yesterday, on a scale of 1-10, I felt like a 5. Today I feel like a 10”
Isn’t that 100% better?
You don’t ask them “US, Canadian or Australian?”
I have never assumed that people were being literal.
There is nothing incorrect about it. Idioms are a common vehicle of expression, both in English and in other languages. If someone says “I feel 100% better than yesterday,” It means they felt very bad yesterday, and they are mostly/completely back to normal today. you should not interpret their statement as a literal, precise mathematical quantification of their state of health.
You should also not take it literally if they say “I feel like shit,” as this is just another idiom.
I feel like shit, or maybe coffee and a donut.
It just means they feel a lot better. Maybe close to 100%. But, no, there’s no defined quantity of “how do I feel today?” If I’m a 1/10 today and feel a 2/10 tomorrow, there’s no way in hell I would say that feels “100%” better. I still feel like shit.
Language isn’t math. This is just a figure of speech, an idiom. It just boggles my mind–though it shouldn’t–when people try to be hyperliteral about expressions, as if everything in life and language has a mathematical, precise nature to it.
If I hear, “I feel a 100% better than yesterday”, I assume they’re not feeling completely well, but they feel a lot better than they felt yesterday.
As long as the scale is linear, that could be theoretically true. The math would also work if you were a 4 yesterday but an 8 today, or a 3 yesterday but a 6 today. But I don’t think it’s likely that someone who isn’t feeling well would describe themselves as 100% better, at least not without qualification.
“I felt like crap yesterday. Today I’m not feeling very good, but it’s 100% better than yesterday.”
These go to 11.
Regards,
Shodan
It can go higher, but if someone medical is asking, it’s usually a pain scale and not a wellness scale.