I’ll try to rephrase what has been already exceptionally correctly been explained to you by @Lupp and @ve3oat. Maybe different wording could make it easier to grasp.
You seem to not understand what “percent” is. You have some kind of thinking habit, that tells you that a phrase “take eleven pounds minus eleven percent” is correct.
Actually, it is not. It is a shortcut that eats up some crucial parts of expression, and those who understand the essence of the math do understand what is being omitted; so using that incomplete (and thus incorrect) phrase is justified when everyone has a clue about the full phrase, which is the following:
- take eleven pounds minus eleven percent of it (i.e., of eleven pounds).
People who understand what a percent is, will never forget that percent is another way to say 1/100. And they can interchangeably say (again, incompletely, taking the shortcut): “take eleven pounds minus eleven hundredths”. And they would never ever think that the phrase is equal to “11-11/100”. They realize that the real math is “11-11*11/100”
But it takes not a long time until people grow who are so much used to thinking with those shortcuts, that they start to forget (or even don’t realize) that percent is just a multiplier, and it needs another multiplier to form a meaningful product. They start to believe that by applying a % to some number, that automatically allows to omit the base number from maths. They don’t even realize that in the formula “8+3-11%”, even if computer would try to guess what should it use for taking percentage of, it couldn’t decide if 11% should be from (8+3) or simply from 3. Sigh… thinking is hard.
There’s no error in the result Calc gives you. There’s no bug here. You tell Calc to calculate =8+3-11/100. It gives you the correct result.
As to “cell as function”. Who told you that that would solve the problem? Heh. Simple reasoning like that makes sad all those who often add or subtract percents before applying the resulting fraction to the base number. If a calculator has a shortcut useful for accountant (when they use it properly) doesn’t mean it has universal value. Spreadsheets must only do what has been explicitly told to them. A “3 + 11/100” could also mean “300% + 11%”. Get used to it. It’s not a calculator.
