Metric prefixes sound a lot like Marx brother names. In fact, seven of the twenty common metric prefixes end in the letter “o”, which definitely helps*. Here’s a list of the metric prefixes and, where applicable, the Marx family member whose name I think most closely matches its nomenclature.
Yotta
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
Zetta
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
Exa
1 000 000 000 000 000 000
Peta
1 000 000 000 000 000
Tera
1 000 000 000 000
Giga – See Groucho under “Kilo”
1 000 000 000
Mega
1 000 000
Kilo – Groucho. It’s a shame there aren’t more metric prefixes that start with “G” I felt obligated to choose Giga for one of the brothers, but “Kilo” seems to fit better for Groucho. The hard ‘K’ sound and the hard ‘G’ sound both have the back of the throat click which I think makes this comparison work.
1 000
Hecto – Harpo. An obvious choice here.
1 00
Deca
1 0
Deci
0.1
Centi – UGH. I’m torn on Chico. I’ve listed it for both Centi and Micro. Honestly, I think Micro is a better fit.
0.01
Milli – Minnie was the mother of the Marx Brothers
0.001
Micro – Chico, yes. This is a better fit.
0.000 000 1
Nano – Gummo. The “n” and “m” sounds are close enough that I think this works.
0.000 000 001
Pico
0.000 000 000 001
Femto
0.000 000 000 000 001
Atto
0.000 000 000 000 000 001
Zepto – Zeppo, a PERFECT choice. This fits better than any other
0.000 000 000 000 000 000 001
Yocto
0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001
*Extra fun fact: I never realized that all metric prefixes that end in “a” are greater than 1. And ALMOST, all of metric prefixes between 0 and 1 end in “o”
Have you ever heard of a “Google Whack”? This is a game where you attempt to come up with two words that when typed into Google without quotes, will yield just one single result.
Years ago me and some friends had our own competition to try to find a Google Whack where one of the words was “pizza”. It took all but we finally found a winner: Pizza Femtopascal