"Eleventy billion" - origin of term?

[BaconTastesGood]

I hear this a lot, but I can't remember where it's from. It reeks of Simpsons.

[MikeSofaer]

AFAIK, "eleventy" comes from the opening to LotR

[Bitterman]

It doesn't really come from anywhere. It's one of those things kids would say and it's semi-amusing, like "aminals" or "pusketti" (spahgetti).

[Jakub]

"We're all here to celebrate my eleventy-first bursday!" - Bilbo Baggins in Fellowship of the Ring

The stupidity of that saying combined with the internet penchant for !1!11!!1!!1 l33t speak exclamations, and the inevitable surplus of ones, has lead to "eleventy billion !1!11!!!!1!"!

[Wholly Schmidt]

Is it the number Dr. Evil throws out in Austin Powers 2 when they continue their joke about him getting all confused about the numbers? I only have the first movie, it wasn't in that one, but I remember the joke coming up again and I can hear Dr. Evil saying it in my mind.

[Lunch of Kong]

Yeah?

So what's the origin of the term

OMGWTFBBQ!!1!

[BaconTastesGood]

Is it the number Dr. Evil throws out in Austin Powers 2 when they continue their joke about him getting all confused about the numbers?

I think that one was "Why make trillions when we can make BILLIONS".

[Jakub]

Yeah?

So what's the origin of the term

OMGWTFBBQ!!1!
It's post-Derekism.

Whereas pre-Derek acronyms were satisfied with LOL, ROFL and, in extreme measures, ROFLMAO, Derekism introduced truly extreme acronyms like LOLlerskates and ROFLMFJAOUN and more... post-Derekism mocks such ridiculous measures much the way that mid-late classical composers mocked the extravagance of baroque music. This is done by seemingly combining acronyms for a Derekist supernym, but one or more parts is utterly ridiculous - such as the BBQ - for contrasting effect. It retains the power of a Derekist acronym, while at the same time being self-mocking and thus still socially acceptable.

[Bitterman]

"We're all here to celebrate my eleventy-first bursday!" - Bilbo Baggins in Fellowship of the Ring


Ok, again, no, that isn't where eleventy came from. It's a semi-corruption of the language, and was aroung long before Tolkein. I believe -ty is Old English suffix for "ten", which is where we get sevenTY, eighTY, etcetera. In addition, a few ancient civilizations used a base 12 type system (Babylonians especially), so eleventy and twelvty would be 110 and 120 repectively. This usage is obsolete since we use a base 10 system of counting.

Which is, coincidentally, why I said earlier it's a corruption that springs up among poor english speakers (kids, new speakers), because it's a logical progression, but it invalidated by our base ten system.

In other words, Tolkien didn't invent everything, nerds.

[Jason McCullough]

Pretty sure that exact phrase is a Monty Burns thing, but can't find proof.

[Jakub]

"We're all here to celebrate my eleventy-first bursday!" - Bilbo Baggins in Fellowship of the Ring


Ok, again, no, that isn't where eleventy came from. It's a semi-corruption of the language, and was aroung long before Tolkein. I believe -ty is Old English suffix for "ten", which is where we get sevenTY, eighTY, etcetera. In addition, a few ancient civilizations used a base 12 type system (Babylonians especially), so eleventy and twelvty would be 110 and 120 repectively. This usage is obsolete since we use a base 10 system of counting.

Which is, coincidentally, why I said earlier it's a corruption that springs up among poor english speakers (kids, new speakers), because it's a logical progression, but it invalidated by our base ten system.

In other words, Tolkien didn't invent everything, nerds.
I didn't say Tolkien invented it.

I'm explaining how it came to be l33t vernacular, n00blet.

[Jamie Madigan]

In addition, a few ancient civilizations used a base 12 type system (Babylonians especially), so eleventy and twelvty would be 110 and 120 repectively. This usage is obsolete since we use a base 10 system of counting.
On a tangent, how does a 12-base counting system come into being? Are there evolutionary, natural, or other reasons for it? Did it stem from the 12-month calendar or vice verca? Are the dozen eggs I bought last weekend a holdover from such a system?

Seems like 10-base is pretty natural due to its properties (decimals and all that) but it may just be that it's so ingrained in my mind that I can't think in terms outside of it. Also, I have 10 fingers, not 12. ;)

[Euri]

On a tangent, how does a 12-base counting system come into being? Are there evolutionary, natural, or other reasons for it? Did it stem from the 12-month calendar or vice verca? Are the dozen eggs I bought last weekend a holdover from such a system?

Same way any other counting system comes about. Often cultures come up with strange religious reasons to use whatever counting system, and to them it would be perfectly natural. I mean, 10 is nice and all because we have 10 fingers, but base 8 and base 12 would both probably be easier to manipulate numbers with due to their ease of division. In 12, you can keep track of 2, 3, 4, 6 rather than just 1 and 5. But, you come to think in terms of what you've learned. So, base 10 and English.

There is a tribe in South America with no real concept of large numbers. They have one, two and many. They are often unable to tell the difference between say, 10 things and 12 things, because they have no mental concept of such a difference.

[Houngan]

I recall Dennis the Menance having a penchant for saying this, well before everything quoted except LOTR. However, that was 20 years ago, so I may be wrong.

H.

[Derek Meister]

Whenever I hear things about relatively isolated tribes of man which don't have a mental idea of this or that I'm somewhat reminded of the argument that ancient people could not tell the difference between most colors (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_168b.html) because they only had words for some of them.

[Miramon]

Base 10 is IMO only natural if you've been inculcated on a base 10 place-based numeral system like our own. Most of the ancient cultures of the world did not have this system, including of course the Romans and even the early medieval Europeans, until finally the "Arabic" numbers came to us from India by way of the Caliphates.

Starting from scratch, you might as well use a base with as many factors as possible, for example the Babylonian one based on 12, 60, and 360, of which vestiges still remain in our culture, for example in our system of degrees, minutes, and seconds, and in the special numeric word "dozen."

[Alan Dunkin]

"Eleventy billion" - I think as far as widespread social awareness goes - comes from an SNL skit spoofing Celebrity Jeopardy, where Alex Trebec during Final Jeopardy asks the actors to write down "anything" (after dismissing the "Famous Mothers" option):

Keanu Reeves, you look rather pleased. Let's see what you wrote down: Nothing. The question was write anything, and you got it wrong. I'm speechless. Let's see what you wagered: Eleventy billion dollars. That's not even a real number.

--- Alan

[Tom Ohle]

"Eleventy billion" - I think as far as widespread social awareness goes - comes from an SNL skit spoofing Celebrity Jeopardy, where Alex Trebec during Final Jeopardy asks the actors to write down "anything" (after dismissing the "Famous Mothers" option):

Keanu Reeves, you look rather pleased. Let's see what you wrote down: Nothing. The question was write anything, and you got it wrong. I'm speechless. Let's see what you wagered: Eleventy billion dollars. That's not even a real number.

--- Alan
Agreed. THat's where I think it came from

[Funkman]

And Keanu's response?

"Thats not even a real number."

"Yet."

[Alan Dunkin]

The other good one is another episode where they have French Stewart who gives the answer as "threeve" but that doesn't seem to have caught on nearly as well.

--- Alan

[Erik Andersson]

Ok, again, no, that isn't where eleventy came from. It's a semi-corruption of the language, and was aroung long before Tolkein. I believe -ty is Old English suffix for "ten", which is where we get sevenTY, eighTY, etcetera. In addition, a few ancient civilizations used a base 12 type system (Babylonians especially), so eleventy and twelvty would be 110 and 120 repectively. This usage is obsolete since we use a base 10 system of counting.


I tried to make sense of your base 12 system, but wouldn't it make more sense to call them "tenty" and "eleventy", being 120 and 132 in base 10? Edit: ok, I see the point now, they weren't supposed to be in base 12.

[Bullhajj]

It was my Uncle Jeb who first said eleventy. This was back at the turn of the century, long before any damn Dennis the Menace or JRR Huff and Puff stuff.

[Bill Dungsroman]

It was my Uncle Jeb who first said eleventy. This was back at the turn of the century, long before any damn Dennis the Menace or JRR Huff and Puff stuff.
He said it in 2000?

[Bullhajj]

It was my Uncle Jeb who first said eleventy. This was back at the turn of the century, long before any damn Dennis the Menace or JRR Huff and Puff stuff.
He said it in 2000?

The other turn of the century, the one before Dennis the Menance and Billiam Dungsroman.

[dannimal]

I have a great book on the istory of numbers (_The Universal History of Numbers_), that goes into all kinds of different culters and the counting systems they used.

A base 20 system demarcated by counting the joints in the fingers/thumbs, and so on. Great stuff.

[Bill Dungsroman]

All this base-eleventy talk reminds me of the time I lost my fucking mind and played Rama. The stupid digitized FMV of the supporting cast (clad in cheesy jumpsuits) and the ginormous interface (yet quixotically inventory was Fallout-bad) that reduced the nonscalable viewing window to roughly the size of an index card and rendered the settting of a gigantic indoor spaceship utterly moot were great, the best part was easily the puzzles that required you to understand base 6 and 12 (IIRC, and I couldn't care less if I did) systems in order to open critical doors. Yes, nothing builds intrigue and tension in an adventure game like MATH PUZZLES.

[Anders Hallin]

Yes, nothing builds intrigue and tension in an adventure game like MATH PUZZLES.
I think that worked rather well in Gabriel Knight 3.

[BobJustBob]

I had a capture-the-flag game on my C64 that gave you the locations of the enemy flag/prison in binary coordinates. It worked pretty well.

[sluggo]

Whatever the origin, it's pretty ginormous.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Well, you fruits go have fun with your math exercises, then. I'm useless at math. I took calculus in college, I didn't know my asymptote from a hole in the graph.






...ANYWAY COME ON GUYS BASE 6 (and the other was 8 ) MATH PUZZLES IN ORDER TO OPEN THE OCTOSPIDERS' LAIR? I know it was in the book and all, but dang... :(

[fire]

Whatever the origin, it's pretty ginormous.
I had an engineering professor that pronounced the prefix giga as jigga. I have a jiggabyte of RAM. He said it makes sense, because it's gigantic and not guy-gantic.

I tried it for a while but people laughed at me when I did it.

[Nick Walter]

Whatever the origin, it's pretty ginormous.
I had an engineering professor that pronounced the prefix giga as jigga. I have a jiggabyte of RAM. He said it makes sense, because it's gigantic and not guy-gantic.

I tried it for a while but people laughed at me when I did it.

All my professors did that too in relation to everything but computers. The computer adoption of metric labels and conventions is haphazard anyway. Is 1Mb = 1024kb or 1000kb this week? In my experience, that depends on which vendor is trying to bamboozle you at the time :D

[shift6]

I had an engineering professor that pronounced the prefix giga as jigga. I have a jiggabyte of RAM. He said it makes sense, because it's gigantic and not guy-gantic.
I tried it for a while but people laughed at me when I did it.
"1.2 jiggawatts!?"
"What the hell's a jigawatt?"

[Brad Grenz]

It's:

"One point twenty-one jiggawatts! Great scott!"

[BaconTastesGood]

He said it makes sense, because it's gigantic and not guy-gantic.

It's "giggle", not "jiggle".
It's "gizzard", not "jizzard"
It's "gimp", not "jimp"
It's "giddy", not "jiddy"
It's "gift", not "jift"
It's "gill", not "gill"
It's "gimbal", not "jimbal"
It's "girl", not "jirl"
It's "give", not "jiv"

Of course, there are the "j" sounding opposites. Point being English is a shitty, inconsistent language. THAT said, "Giga" is from Greek, so go ask someone in Athens.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Guys. GUYS! It's just a silly expression. Like "recuntulous" or "scatacular" or all the other ones most of which I just made up.

[Ben]

It's "gill", not "gill"


Ach, my brane!