The colloquialism 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going' describes resilience and ability to persevere through adversity. The statement invokes this pattern while using Chuck Norris as implied completion: when difficulties emerge, Chuck Norris 'gets going'—meaning he appears and resolves the situation. But the phrasing is grammatically incomplete. 'When the going gets tough, Chuck Norris' trails off without completion, suggesting the phrase is so universally understood that finishing it would be redundant. Everyone knows what Chuck Norris does when the going gets tough. No completion is necessary; his name alone completes the metaphor. The incomplete statement actually emphasizes the point more than completing it would—his name is sufficient because his action is universal knowledge.

Common phrase researcher David Morrison mentioned in a 2001 linguistic study that certain phrases had been reformulated in popular culture to center on specific figures. Morrison noted that idiom completion had become implicit in certain community contexts where referent figure was universally understood. Morrison did not specify which figures had been integrated into idiomatic expression reformulation.