Eleventy-Zillion

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Fry: One jillion dollars!
[Audience Gasps]
Auctioneer: That's not a real number, sir.
[Audience Gasps Harder]

—Futurama

When your notation isn't enough, it's better to make up new numbers on the spot.

Has two popular varieties:

  1. Using zillions, skyrillions and other such words as real (but ridiculously high) numbers. Often Lampshaded.
  2. Just making up numbers when their correct meaning may be guessed: for example, "eleventy" must be 110.

Of course, there are plenty of real large numbers ending in -illion, usually formed with boring Latin prefixes - Wikipedia, as always, has a list.

Ridiculous Future Inflation can be a cause of this. Usually a Comedy Trope. Justified when a character really uses another notation. For money, compare Zillion-Dollar Bill and contrast Undisclosed Funds.

This is not to be confused with the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers, which are far more useful, especially when computing the square root of a negative number.

Examples of Eleventy-Zillion include:

Advertising

  • "Did you know women prefer Old Spice for their men one bajillion times more than ladies' scented body washes? Did you know that I'm riding this horse backwards? Hyah!"
  • There's an ING commercial where one man is carrying around a sign that reads 1.2 million dollars which is the amount that he knows he needs to have in order to live comfortably in retirement. His next door neighbor has a sign that says "A Gazillion" to illustrate that he doesn't know what he requires for retirement and thus needs the company's services.

Comic Books

Q: How many drops of water pass over Niagara Falls in a week?
A: Nine trillion multipadillion, six hundred and eighty-six squadrificillion, fifty octodecimadillion, eight hundred and sixty-three centrifipillion, nine hundred and forty overplusillion, six hundred and five duplicatillion, thirty-three impossibadillion, seven hundred and ninety-one compounded ultrafatillion, three hundred and forty super trillion, fifty-nine duper dillion, twenty-nine billion, seven hundred and fifty million, four hundred and six thousand, five hundred and thirty-three drops.

      • An easier answer would be 3, if you consider a "drop" is also a smaller fall within a waterfall.

Fan Works

Sakyo: $20 billion on the intruders.
Tarukune: Sakyo, quit bustin' my balls. Stop makin' up numbers.
Giles: A billion is a real number, sir.
Tarukune: I've just been informed that a billion is a real number.

  • According to the first episode of Ouran the Vaguely Abridged Series, Haruhi Fujioka needs "eight million jillion quadrillion malalalalilion shoo-ba-da-da-do-bop-bop-ian" in order to pay off a broken vase. Also note that value doesn't have a currency attached to it.

Film

Nancy Kendricks: Well it's going to be worth a bazillion times that.

Eddie Valiant: We were investigating a robbery at the First National Bank of Toontown. [snip] Anyway, this guy got away with a zillion simoleons.

    • Might actually be justified (and not just by Rule of Funny). "Zillion" might in fact be a number in Toon, and one wonders if there's an exchange rate for "simoleons".
      • Or you could always spend them in SimCity.
  • Undercover Brother

The Chief: Didn't you cause about a ba-zillion dollars worth of damage?

Hades: Uh, yeah, Poseidon, about a zillion times...

Trooper: Bugs, Mr. Rico! Zillions of 'em!

  • To modern ears, Back to The Future's famous "1.21 jiggawatts" sounds like this, but it's really just an outdated pronunciation of "gigawatts".
  • Austin Powers: Dr. Evil holds the world hostage for "1 billion, gagillion, fafillion, shabolubalu million illion yillion...yen". The UN deems it a reasonable price.
    • This was a reference to the two previous films:
      • In International Man of Mystery, Dr. Evil decides to hold the world hostage for "one million dollars!" A large amount of money in 1967... not so much in 1997. Number Two convinces him to hold the world ransom for the more reasonable amount of "one hundred... billion... dollars." When he calls the UN to give them his demands, he accidentally gives them the one million dollar price and they laugh in his face - and are then shocked when he gives the real amount.
      • In The Spy Who Shagged Me, Dr. Evil contacts the White House and demands the sum of "one hundred billion dollars!" He's met with ridicule because it's 1969: there isn't that much money in the entire world. He then gives the one million dollar figure and they predictably panic.
    • He also states in the third film "Why go for trillions when we can go for billions", which Scott proceeds to angrily correct. Seems Dr. Evil just really sucks at both math and economics.
  • Pee-wee's Big Adventure: "I wouldn't sell my bike for all the money in the world - not for a hundred million billion trillion dollars!" The end result is a one with 29 zeroes after it.
  • In the beginning of Toy Story, the wanted poster of Mr. Potato Head shows the "$50 bzillion" reward. Of course, the drawing was done by a six year old boy.

Jokes

  • Donald Rumsfeld briefed the President this morning. He told Bush that three Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq. To everyone's amazement, all of the colour ran from Bush's face, then he collapsed onto his desk, head in hands, visibly shaken, almost whimpering. Finally, he composed himself and asked Rumsfeld, "Just exactly how many is a brazillion?"

Literature

"Today is my 111th birthday: I am eleventy-one today!"

    • In this instance, it's a case of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe — emphasis on Old English (the term was derived from hund endleofantig).
    • Also the implications that since hobbits live longer than humans, uneventfully going over a hundred, they would need handier terms for such ages.
      • Bilbo's life was artificially lengthened by the ring, so he had lived much longer than a normal hobbit.
  • In Life the Universe And Everything, the Krikkit Wars apparently resulted in two grillion casualties.
  • Witches Abroad:

"Bet you a million trillion zillion dollars you can't turn that bush into a pumpkin," said the child.
...
"Nothing. Just thinking. And you owe me a million trillion zillion squillion dollars."

  • Dave Barry once proposed that Congress should use the "Whomptillion", defined as "an amount of money so huge that every time a Congressman says the word, your taxes go up 5%".
  • In the last Ramona Quimby book, Ramona turns ten, but refers to herself as "zeroteen" because she thinks the way the first three double-digit numbers get left out of the "teens" is arbitrary and unfair.
    • In Beezus and Ramona, when she's five, she weighs herself and comes up with "fifty-eleven pounds."

Live-Action TV

Cliff Huxtable: Do you know just how much it's going to cost to fix the washing machine? A bazillion dollars.

    • "Denise Kendall: Navy Wife"

Cliff Huxtable: There is a zillion skillion babies in Heaven.

Alex Trebek: [to Keanu] Let's see what you wagered: Eleventy billion dollars. That's not even a real number.
Keanu Reeves: Yet.

    • In another episode, Alex threw out the final category and told the contestants to write down any number at all in order to win. Jimmy Fallon's French Stewart went with "threeve" and then wagered "$Texas."
  • Parodied on That Mitchell and Webb Look, in a Numberwang sketch where an "Imaginary Numbers" round is played. Somehow, while "Twentington" and "Frilve hundred and Neeb" are accepted, "Shinty-six" (depicted as fifty-six with a reversed five) is rejected as a real number, as in the popular phrase, "I only have shinty-six days left to live."
  • Timmy Mallet's children's breakfast show from The Eighties, Wacaday, popularised "squillion". This recently re-emerged when Nick Clegg used it in one of the British prime ministerial debates.
  • In the episode "Culture for the Masses" in The Goodies, Tim buys a painting at an auction for "one million billion quintillion zillion pounds and two and a half new pence", which it goes without saying that he does not have. They leave thirteen pence as a deposit. By Contrived Coincidence, the National Gallery have all their paintings insured for exactly one million billion quintillion zillion pounds. Hilarity Ensues.
  • The TV Series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy extends a line of dialogue from the book and puts in a new number:

Ford Prefect: I think this ship is brand-new, Arthur.
Arthur Dent: Why, have you got some exotic device for measuring the age of metal?
Ford Prefect: No. I just found this sales brochure on the floor. It says, "The Universe can be yours for a mere five quilliard Altairian dollars."
Arthur Dent: Cheap?
Ford Prefect: A quilliard is a whole page full of noughts [zeros] with a one at the beginning.

  • Mr. Show featured a sketch set in the 1890s which revolved around a marching band competition judged by the "Eleventy-Twelfth President of the United States".
  • There was a series of sketches on Mad TV parodying Schoolhouse Rock and one of the songs parodied was "Three is a Magic Number". The lyrics went like:

3, 6, 9
12, 47, 90
Something, next, 100
3 times 10 is -2
3 times 5 is elevendy
3 times 2 is I dunno

Music

  • Jay-Z's "Allure":

"The game is a light bulb with eleventy-million volts"

It's been fifty-eleven days, umpteen hours,
 I'm gonna be burnin' 'til you return!

Newspaper Comics

  • Calvin and Hobbes: On a math test, Calvin asks Suzie for an answer, and she responds "three hundred billion gazillion."
    • This is then lampshaded, as Calvin proceeds to snark her for giving such a "helpful" answer. Susie then follows up by saying that it's a 3, followed by 85 zeroes, and Calvin writes it down.
    • Spaceman Spiff also tends to use these kinds of "-illion" numbers.
    • When Calvin asks Hobbes for help with his math homework, Hobbes notes that it requires calculus and imaginary numbers, "You know, eleventeen, thirty-twelve, and all those." (Imaginary numbers, by the way, are a real mathematical concept, but not the way Hobbes puts it.)
  • Dilbert has "frooglepoopillion".

Tropes

Video Games

  • Billy vs. SNAKEMAN: The Eleventy Billionth HoKage insists that "eleventy" means "eleven more than everything"
  • One selling point of Borderlands was its "87 bazillion" guns (actually creations courtesy of a parts generator), which Fan Dumb has tried to explain as both a finite or an infinite number of guns, depending on who you ask.
    • The actual number of weapon combinations is quite high, but doesn't even come close to the "billion" moniker.
  • In Mother 2 (the Japanese Version), Porky's dad claims Ness' family owes him an unrealistic value, something equivalent to "hundred million jillion dollars". In the US version, it was changed to a realistic value of hundred thousand dollars or more.
  • In the starting zone for Goblins in World of Warcraft, Trade Prince Gallywick demands the player give him "a bazillion macaroons" in exchange for safe passage from Kezan. It's not stated how much this is, but even though the player is one of the richest goblins in town, he/she has to defeat mobs of bandits, steal from Gallick's estate, and torch his own office for the insurance in order to meet the price.

Web Comics

Web Original

Brazilian astronauts to visit Space Station. Bush asks how they'll fit that many up there.

Western Animation

  • Scrooge McDuck earns these amounts daily. His total fortune is given here as Five multiplujillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and seventeen cents.
    • In the Dutch versions, his inane amounts always end at "...and sixteen cents" instead. List your country too if it deviates!
  • The Fairly Oddparents: Norm the Genie tries to get Timmy to order a million billion jillion dollars. Timmy says he knows there's no such number as a jillion, and wishes for the billion. Hilarity Ensues - he never said they would be "real".
  • Frosty the Snowman (1969)

Santa Claus: Now you go home and write "I am very sorry for what I did to Frosty" 100 zillion times.

    • And it's implied at the end he succeeded.
  • Animaniacs episode "Flipper Parody/Temporary Insanity/Operation: Lollipop/What Are We?": a check for 80 zillion dollars.
  • Batman Beyond episode "The Winning Edge"

Batman: Come on, he must be a zillion years old.

Senator 1: I say we fine the El Dorado Tobacco Company infinty billion dollars!
Senator 2: That's the spirit! But I think a real number might be more effective.

  • Codename: Kids Next Door:
    • In "Operation: I.S.C.R.E.A.M. Numbah Three finally finds a thermostat and promptly cranks it to the "Like eleventy bajillion degrees!" setting.
    • Chester always says he wants a buh-million dollars (denoted as $BUH.000.000), and he gets a check for that much from Mr. Boss in "Operation: U.T.O.P.I.A"; although, this is only because the heroes have trapped him in his own Lotus Eater Machine.
    • In fact, the number "eleventy billon" is thrown around quite frequently, presumably meaning 110 * 109, or 110,000,000,000. Even Father says it in "Operation: Z.E.R.O."
  • On The Penguins of Madagascar, when Kowalski is asked about a number that's less than nothing, he comes up with "neg-finity".
  • In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Truth or Square", the Krusty Krab celebrates its eleventy-seventh anniversary.
  • In one episode of Doug, the titular character is imagining an utterly one-sided baseball game. When he asks Skeeter for the score, his bud replies, "A bajillion to nothing."
  • In one episode of Futurama, when Fry was bidding against Mom for the last can of anchovies on Earth:

Fry: (pointing dramatically) One. Jillion. Dollars.
Crowd: (gasps)
Auctioneer: Sir, that's not a number.
Crowd: (gasps louder)

  • On U.S. Acres, Roy once won "one skillion dollars" while competing on a game show.
  • In an episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes, when asked by Lucius how many times Beezy has saved his life, Beezy says "Twe-leven!"
  • In the Kim Possible episode "The Big Job", Señor Senior Junior records his ransom demands:

Señor Senior Junior: Hello everyone. If you are interested in having the five richest people in the world safely returned to you, you need to convey to us the sum of a bazillion zillion dollars.
Shego (offscreen): That’s not a real number.
Señor Senior Junior: But it sounds so impressive! And don't you like my evil chortle?
Shego (pushing SSJ aside): Hi, he's new at this. A billion dollars apiece will do just fine.

Dr. IQ High: Those mechanic parts aren't toys. They cost six wazillion dollars.
Dodgers: Is that a lot?
Dr. IQ High: It's so much money that we actually had to make up a number and multiply it by six just to count it.

  • The "Broadway Magic" episode of Jem had Eric Raymond offering the real amount of one million dollars to anyone who could reveal Jem's secret identity, a man from a fake sweepstakes company approached Jem with a check for one ZILLION dollars and said that the money was hers if she signed her real name.
  • In the Dennis the Menace cartoon, Dennis and Joey go to watch a movie about a high-tech submarine; when Joey asks how much a submarine like that must cost, Dennis says it must be "at least eleventy-seven zillion dollars!" This is later "confirmed" by one of the characters in the movie when he has an Imagine Spot with him as the ship's captain.
  • From Evil Con Carne; in the opening credits, Hector claims he was a "jillionaire playboy" before he became a Brain In a Jar super-villain.

Real Life

  • The technical name for a googol, if you were to extrapolate from the usual naming convention, would be "ten duotrigintillion", or "ten thousand sexdecillion" on the long scale (where a billion equals one million millions), or we could just say 10^100 and call it a day.
    • Hilariously, the term was supposedly coined by mathematician Edward Kasner's young nephew upon being asked for a large number.
  • Truth in Television: Graham's number is so ridiculously huge that we have to use another notation to write it.
    • If we were to use the normal notation, we'd need a new universe to write it, as this one is entirely too small. For a time it was the largest number ever used seriously in a maths proof, though it's since lost this title to other numbers.
  • There is an entire thread on the XKCD forums dedicated to creating ever larger and larger numbers. After about 5 pages of this, the numbers being thrown around make Graham's Number seem like a speck of dust in comparison. After another 10 pages... let's just say that the numbers are so large that the math to understand these numbers gets progressively harder and harder to understand.
    • Probably set in motion by this comic. The Ackermann Function tends to return huge values for even the smallest numbers (The Other Wiki says A(4,3) has 6.031*10^19727 digits). Now imagine Graham's number as the input. "AUGHHH" indeed.
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