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Sometimes companies use tricky grammar in their advertising, grammar that makes a product sound wonderful even though it may not be. One such trick is using “up to” to describe the effectiveness of or discount on a product.
“Up to (number/amount)” indicates a maximum amount in a range, but it does not indicate a minimum, so “up to 100%” means anywhere between 0% and 100%. Therefore, a company can grammatically (and legally) claim that their product is “up to 100% effective” even if its effectiveness is nowhere near 100% or that you can save “up to 80%” even if the discount is likely much lower!
Here’s an example: A commercial I often see on YouTube these days claims that a certain brand of diapers stops “up to 100%” of leaks. This statement, unfortunately, is almost meaningless. It could mean that the diapers stop 1% of leaks, 50% of leaks, or 100% of leaks - it really tells us nothing at all about the product’s effectiveness. So, watch out for this kind of tricky grammar, especially in advertising!
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