What is fleventy five?

Question

In an episode of "Silicon Valley", one of the characters goes on a rant about how smart he is and cut his teeth on 'hex tables', and he says, "ask me what F times 9 is. It's fleventy-five!" This is well documented, so I don't think I misheard him.

Now we know that f is 15, so basic maths says that 15*9 is 135 in base-10 or 87 in base-16. I don't think that you can say the answer is d5 because that would be mixing hex and dec, but I'm willing to believe that the writers made that mistake because 87 doesn't sound as impressive. Also, I thought I had heard the word "fleven" before, but now I can't find it except in reference to "Silicon Valley."

What is fleventy-five? Is it d? Are all the hex characters named?

Any insight would be appreciated. Cheers!

Answer 1

T.J Miller says he improvised it in this clip @ 2:50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_7ejTiGyb0

Answer 2

I cross posted this, and they said in Stack Overflow that this was just a throwaway joke in the show, which I guess I took too seriously.

Answer 3

I think the fact that it doesn't work is even funnier. Clearly Erlich is bluffing and banking on the fact that no one would call him out and check the answer. Fleventy five sounds so believable, you can't help saying to yourself "Oh ok, that's what they must call it".

Answer 4

Pronunciation of hex characters like "fleventy-five" is not a thing that existed before that episode of Silicon Valley.

But in a wonderful case of life imitating art, it now is (or at least could be). See http://www.bzarg.com/p/how-to-pronounce-hexadecimal/ for a full guide!