Wikipedia:Unusual articles: Difference between revisions

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This page is for Wikipedians to list articles that seem a bit unusual. These articles are valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, but are somewhat odd, whimsical, or... well, something you wouldn't expect to find in Encyclopædia Britannica. We should take special care to meet the highest standards of an encyclopedia with these articles lest they make Wikipedia appear idiosyncratic.

If you wish to add articles to this list, a broad consensus amongst contributors has identified two main guidelines. If the article in question meets one or both of these categories then it could possibly be deemed "unusual":

The article is something you would not expect to find in a standard encyclopedia.
The article contains some form of juxtaposition that most people would find unusual. eg Killer Cockroach, Henry VIII in Space, edible computers.

Note that this is a broad definition. Some articles may still be considered "unusual" even if they don't fit the guidelines above.

For unusual contributions that are not so valuable, see Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense.

History

Jack Black - Queen Victoria's officially appointed rat-catcher and mole destroyer.
Boston molasses disaster - Twenty-one people die when a huge tank at a confectionery factory bursts, sending a wave of molasses down the streets of Boston.
Crushing by elephant - An unusual form of capital punishment used throughout history.
Douglas Corrigan - A pilot who made such a grave navigational "error" that, after taking off from New York, he landed in Ireland instead of Los Angeles and he thence became known popularly as "Wrong Way" Corrigan.
Drake's Plate of Brass an in-joke that got misinterpreted and went terribly awry.
Dymaxion car - 1933, 3 wheels, 20ft long, 11 passengers, 120mph and a steering wheel that turned the car in the opposite direction.
Emperor Norton - The man who claimed to be "Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico" in 1859.
February 30 - Throughout history, some nations had 30 days in February.
Flying ointment - A hallucinogenic ointment said to be used by witches in the Early Modern period.
The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women - A 1558 diatribe by John Knox against Mary, Queen of Scots and Mary Tudor.
History of elephants in Europe - It wasn't just Hannibal.
Hitler has only got one ball - Was the führer only half a man?
Heribert Illig - Apparently it is not the year 2005: it is actually 1708.
Jewish Autonomous Oblast - A region in Eastern Russia that borders China. Only 1.2% of the population is Jewish.
Liver-Eating Johnson - A 19th century mountain man with a penchant for revenge and the consumption of livers.
Lost counties, cities and towns of Virginia is an article about all the places that aren't physically in Virginia anymore, and a few that never were. Look here for Walton's Mountain, Valleyville, and Illinois County, Virginia (currently home of Chicago, Illinois).
Moresnet - A European nation that disappeared in 1919.
New Chronology (Fomenko) - A Russian mathematician claims that Jesus is the same person as Pope Gregory VII and quite a few other people.
Original Spanish Kitchen - A Los Angeles restaurant that unexpectedly and suddenly closed in the early 1960s, which gave rise to an urban legend about the fate of its proprietors. The restaurant's contents were untouched for decades, right down to the placesettings!
Le Pétomane - A French entertainer famous in Victorian times for breaking wind at will.
Rocket mail - The delivery of mail by rocket or missile, attempted by various organisations in many different countries, with varying levels of success.
Sealand - A micronation located six miles (10 km) off the coast of Suffolk, England, with a population that rarely exceeds five.
Sedlec ossuary - A Christian chapel decorated by the bones of approximately 40,000 people.
Spittoon - An article of furniture made for spitting into, especially by users of chewing tobacco.
Timothy (tortoise) - A tortoise that was present during the bombardment of Sevastapol during the Crimean War in 1854, finally dying in 2004.
Tubby (dog) - The only casualty of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
Year zero - Was there a year between 1 BC and 1 AD?

Language and names

The Voynich manuscript is written in an unknown script

File:Zzyzx.jpg

Zzyzx Road exit

Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 - A name given to a Swedish child by his parents in May 1996 (and pronounced as "Albin").
Buckethead - The stage name of a heavy metal guitarist who has worked with Guns N' Roses among others. He always performs with a white mask and a KFC bucket on his head.
Cadigan - These words occupy a syntactic space between nouns and pronouns. Examples include thingummy, thingy, and whatchamacallit.
Thursday October Christian - Son of Fletcher Christian (leader of the Mutiny on the Bounty), he changed his name when he discovered his calendar was wrong.
Dord - An English word which never existed, yet was listed in Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition from 1935 to 1939.
English as she is spoke - A Portuguese-English conversational guide or phrase book that is regarded as a classic of unintentional humour.
Engrish - A slang term which, in its purest form, refers to poor-quality attempts by professional Japanese and other East Asian writers to create English words and phrases.
ETAOIN SHRDLU - A cryptic phrase that has accidentally made its way into newspapers and other publications.
Faux Cyrillic - A simple way to give ordinary English text some much-needed "Яussiaи flavour".
Fnord - Disinformation or irrelevant information intending to misdirect, with the implication of a conspiracy. A popular word with followers of Discordianism.
Heavy metal umlaut - Än ümläüt övër lëttërs ïn thë nämë öf ä hëävÿ mëtäl bänd ïntëndëd tö gïvë thëïr lögö ä töügh Gërmänïc fëël.
Hyphen War - The battle over how to spell "Czechoslovakia."
Inherently funny word - Some influential comedians have long regarded certain words in the English language as being humorous because of their sound and/or connotation. e.g.: rutabaga.
Jennifer 8. Lee - An actual person whose middle name is the number eight.
Longest word in English - Floccinaucinihilipilification and others.
Adolf Lu Hitler Marak - A politician in an Indian state where people are called: Lenin R. Marak, Stalin L. Nangmin, Frankenstein W. Momin, or Tony Curtis Lyngdoh.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch - Longest officially recognised place name in the United Kingdom.
Markovian Parallax Denigrate - we don't know. Neither does anyone else. Or do they?
Nihilartikel - A deliberately fictitious entry in an encyclopedia or dictionary, which is intended to be more or less quickly recognized as false by the reader.
Nucular - An intentional misspelling of the word nuclear which is usually intended to express contempt or amusement towards the commonplace mispronunciation of that word.
Oink - What do pigs say in Swedish, Russian or Korean?
Pompatus - Steve Miller has much to answer for.
Optimus Prime (person) - The name of a U.S. Army Ohio National Guard firefighter.
Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters "George" - an association formed by railway sleeping car porters to promote the elimination of the practice of refering to all porters by the name "George" regardless of their actual name.
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu - In New Zealand, there's a small hill with a BIG name.
The dozens - An African American custom in which two competitors—usually males—go head to head in a competition of often ribald "trash talk".
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? - A French phrase popularized in the song "Lady Marmalade."
Voynich manuscript - A mysterious illustrated book of unknown contents, written some 600 years ago by an anonymous author in an unidentified alphabet and unintelligible language.
Zyzyxia lundellii - The last plant name in any dictionary; oddly it was not inspired by the name...
Zzyzx Road - Purported to be the lexicographically greatest (alphabetically last) street name in the world.

Science and medicine

File:Sexynose.jpg

Nose-picking

Acetylseryltyrosylserylisol...serine - An actual name for a chemical that is 1185 letters long.
Alien hand syndrome - An unusual mental disorder whereby one of the sufferer's hands seems to take a life of its own.
Apollo moon landing hoax accusations - Fake photos, slow-motion cameras and secret studios. All directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Autofellatio/Autocunnilingus - Act of oral self-stimulation.
Belly button fluff - A study proves that most fluff is blue and that women are less likely to have it.
Bill Gates' flower fly
Bloop - does a mystery sound from the bottom of the sea indicate that the Kraken may awake ..?
Booger - Slang for the partly solidified mucus from a human nose.
Capgras delusion - Has your brother or spouse been replaced by an identical looking imposter?
Cartoon physics - Animation allows for natural laws to be ignored for the sake of humor.
Chicken hypnotism - How to put a chicken into a trance using only one's hands.
Danger triangle of the face - Due to the special nature of the blood supply to the human nose and surrounding area, it is possible for retrograde infections from the nasal area to spread to the brain.
Death erection - People who die and remain in a vertical position will have a natural pooling of their blood to their legs and waist. This causes the legs and genitalia to bloat.
Dihydrogen monoxide - A chemical that, under the right conditions, can be deadly to all forms of plant and animal life.
Dreamachine - A device made with a light bulb and a record turntable that reportedly induces lucid dreaming.
Electrode-guided rats - Implanted electrodes let researchers "steer the animal over an obstacle course, making it twist, turn and even jump on demand."
Embryo space colonization - A proposal for colonizing space using embryos raised by robots.
Erototoxin - Why too much self-abuse is bad for you, according to an anti-porn activist's pseudoscientific theories.
Exploding head syndrome - Some people hear a massive explosion that wakes them up after being asleep for an hour or two.
Fan death - Attack of the killer electric fans. Are you sure all your fans are turned off?
Fatal hilarity - Is there really anything so funny you can die of laughter?
Five-second rule - If food is accidentally dropped on the ground, is it still safe to eat if you pick it up within five seconds?
Flynn Effect - The world is steadily getting smarter.
Foreign accent syndrome - A rare medical condition whereby sufferers speak their native language with a foreign accent.
Phineas Gage - A 19th century man who survived a traumatic brain injury and became an important figure in the development of Neuroscience.
Gay bomb - a potential non-lethal chemical weapon, which a U.S. Air Force research laboratory speculated about producing, that could be dropped on enemy troops, to cause "homosexual behaviour."
Gimli Glider - Due to an input error, a Boeing 767 plane runs out of fuel mid-flight and becomes a glider.
GoldenPalace.com Monkey - A new species of Monkey that was officially named after the internet casino following an auction.
Ham sandwich theorem - Can a ham sandwich be bisected with a two-dimensional plane?
History of perpetual motion machines - People have expended wasteful amounts of energy for over 1000 years researching this concept.
Horrendous Space Kablooie - A more evocative name for the Big Bang.
Human penis size - Scientific data on average size, racial variations, surgical enlargement and myths.
Infinite monkey theorem - An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will produce all possible written texts.
ISO 3103 - The ISO standard cup of tea.
Male lactation - Given the right conditions, even Ah-nuld can do this.
Male pregnancy - Don't expect humans to do this, but seahorses can.
Lina Medina - A Peruvian girl who gave birth to a son when she was 5 years old, becoming the youngest known mother ever.
Methionylglutaminy...serine - An actual name for an enzyme that is 1,913 letters long.
Methionylalanylthreonyl...leucine - An actual name for a protein that is 64,060 letters long.
Mucophagy - The consumption of one's own nasal mucus.
Nose-picking - Also known as rhinotillexis.
Pathological science - A pejorative term for scientific ideas that will simply not "go away", long after they are given up on as wrong by the majority of scientists in the field.
'Pataphysics - A parody of science that purports to study what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics.
Photic sneeze reflex - People who sneeze when suddenly exposed to bright light
Polywater - Cold War scientists in Russia create a polymer out of water.
Project Mohole - A 1961 attempt to drill through the Earth's crust.
Pykrete - A bullet-resistant frozen-water compound.
Quantum immortality - An infinite number of parallel universes means that any one person will always live forever.
Rhinogradentia - A fictitious mammal order documented by an equally fictitious German naturalist.
Schmidt Sting Pain Index - Created by an entomologist, after having been stung by almost everything, to compare the overall pain of insect stings on a four-point scale.
Smoot - A unit of distance used to measure the Harvard Bridge.
Stockholm syndrome - What if hostages grew infatuated with their captors?
Sokal Affair - A famous hoax played by physicist Alan Sokal on the postmodernist humanities academics world.
Squaring the circle - It is impossible, using only ruler-and-compass constructions, to construct a square with the same area as a given circle. This problem occupied mathematicians for centuries.
Spontaneous human combustion - The burning of a person's body without any apparent source of ignition
Sterile Atomic Fly - The United Nations solution to fighting Sleeping sickness in Africa.
Supernumerary nipple - Also known as a "Third Nipple."
Supertaster - A person who has an unusually strong sense of taste.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge - A mile long suspension bridge in Washington State that was destroyed by wind.
Toilet-related injury - Not all injuries and deaths linked to toilets are urban legends, and there are also many people who died in the bathroom.
Tomacco - One of the few made up words in The Simpsons that resulted in a real life application
Thagomizer - a feature of stegosaurus anatomy named after a Far Side comic strip
Thiotimoline - A fictional chemical which dissolves before it comes into contact with water.
Thumb twiddling - an activity that is done with the hands of an individual whereby the fingers are interlocked and the thumbs circle around a common focal point, usually in the middle of the distance between the two thumbs.
Tin-foil hat - Headgear that allegedly prevents a person from having their minds read or controlled.
Mary Toft a maidservant who, according to her doctors, gave birth to at least sixteen rabbits.
Trepanation - A form of surgery where a hole is drilled or scraped into the skull. It was thought that such a procedure could cure problems like epilepsy or allow a person to enter into a higher state of conciousness.
Trichotillomania - An impulse control disorder characterised by the repeated urge to pull out scalp hair, eyelashes, eyebrows or other body hair.
Triskaidekaphobia - Fear of the number 13.
Turtles all the way down - A myth about the nature of the universe, or perhaps a myth about a myth about the nature of the universe.
Ulam spiral - A bored mathematician discovers an unusual numerical pattern while doodling
Unibrow - The presence of hair between the eyebrows (sometimes called a monobrow)
Weasel war dance - The behavior of extremely excited ferrets who are enjoying themselves too much
Will Rogers phenomenon - Also known as the Will Rogers paradox; the apparent paradox obtained when moving an element from one set to another set that raises the average values of both sets.

Popular culture

File:Leejapan.jpg

A former head of state "cosplays" a Japanese right-wing manga character.

Aron Ralston - One tough guy who, in order to escape from death, cut off his own arm with a dull knife after a boulder fell on it.
Dick Assman (pronounced OSS-man) - A Saskatchewan service station owner whose name propelled him to international celebrity status in 1995.
Caganer - A traditional Catalan statue (similar to a garden gnome) that depicts a person defecating.
Calculator words - Words that can be read on numeral calculators by being read upside down.
Chess-related deaths - People killed while playing chess.
Cosplay - A Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, and video games.
Cow tipping - The act of pushing over sleeping cows.
Croydon facelift - A hairstyle peculiar to parts of England.
Dinny the Dinosaur - A larger-than-life, 150-ton sculpture of a brontosaurus in the desert of Southern California west of Palm Springs. Dinny's companion is "Mr. Rex," a 150-ton sculpture of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Dwarf tossing - A humorous sporting competition where well-padded dwarfs are thrown by competitors.
Earworm - A term used for an annoying song that a person cannot get out of their head.
Elvis sightings - There are many who still believe.
Evil clown - A recent development in American popular culture in which the playful trope of the clown is rendered as disturbing through the use of dark humor and horror elements.
Exploding animals, such as:
- Exploding hamsters -
- Exploding sheep - A meme most commonly found in American and British computer games.
- Exploding toads - An as-yet unexplained phenomenon observed in April 2005 in districts of Hamburg, Germany and near a lake at Låsby, Denmark.
- Exploding whale - Real whales exploded in Oregon in 1970 and Taiwan in 2004.
Gay Fuel - an energy drink marketed towards the gay community.
Goatse.cx - One of the most infamous Internet shock sites.
Homokaasu - "Gay gas" - mysterious chemical substance conspiracy theory.
How to keep an idiot busy - No description of article yet. Please return in five minutes.
Human rainbow - A huge gathering of colours.
International Talk Like a Pirate Day - Shiver your timbers, yaaar, every September 19.
Jackalope - A fictitious cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope.
Jack the Stripper - The other unidentified serial killer named Jack.
Japanese toilet - The most advanced toilets in the world with computers, nozzles and flashing lights.
Lighting farts - The act of igniting gases produced by human flatulence.
Lin Wang - A Taiwanese elephant made famous for his participation in the Sino-Japanese War.
The Mad Gasser of Mattoon - A figure said to have terrorised the town of Mattoon, Illinois in 1944.
Making a face - A Western term for creating odd appearances of the face.
McDonald's urban legends - Is that worm meat in your Big Mac?
McWords - Words created in popular culture as a result of the influence of McDonald's Restaurants, e.g. McJob or McMansion.
Merhan Karimi Nasseri - An Iranian refugee who has been living in Charles de Gaulle Airport since 1988.
Meta-joke - A joke that refers to itself as the joke.
Metrophile - A person who loves underground railway systems.
Mexican Perforation - A French artistic movement that expresses itself in underground places.
Mike the Headless Chicken - A rooster that lived for 18 months with its head cut off.
Mojave phone booth - A public phone booth that stood for several years in the middle of a desert, miles away from any roads or other structures.
Mooning - The act of exposing one's bare buttocks.
Mr. Potato Head - A popular children's doll, consisting of a plastic model of a potato.
Napoleon in popular culture - Fictional characters believing they are Napoleon are often used to suggest mental ill health.
No soap radio - A prank joke intended to fool one of its listeners into believing that it is a joke.
Numbers station (Two bars of "Lincolnshire Poacher" play) ¡Atención! ¡Atención! One, four, seventeen, twenty four...
Page Three girl - A woman who poses for topless photographs published in UK tabloid newspapers.
Paul Is Dead - Was Paul McCartney replaced by a lookalike in the 1960's?
Pen spinning - An activity in which assorted tricks are used to manipulate a pen in aesthetically pleasing ways.
Penis panic - A colloquial term referring to a type of mass hysteria or panic where males grow fearful of removal or shrinking of the penis.
Pimpmobile - A large luxury automobile that has been heavily customized in a garish, extravagant style to advertise its owner's wealth and importance.
Pink Pistols - They're here, they're queer, and they're armed to the teeth.
"Shit happens" - A common slang phrase, used as a simple existential observation that life is full of imperfections.
Shoe flinging - The practice of throwing footwear, whether for humorous or political purposes.
Size queen - Slang term originally used in the gay community to refer to individuals with a prefrence for larger-than-average (male) genitalia, more recently applied to women with such a preference as well.
Space burial - Around 150 people have had their remains interred in space.
Spanish announcers' table - Staple prop in destructive professional wrestling bouts.
Spring Heeled Jack - A mysterious character said to have existed in England during the Victorian age.
The Book of Heroic Failures - A book which glories in failure. Started off The Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain. The book was a success and thus declared a "failure as a failure".
The World Famous Bushman - A street entertainer in San Francisco who makes a living by pretending to be a bush.
Toilet humour - Humor based upon bodily functions.
Toynbee tiles - Mysterious tiles that are found embedded in ashphalt in the United States. The tiles contain a cryptic message.
Treacle mining - The fictitious mining of treacle (molasses) in a raw form similar to coal.
Wilhelm scream - A stock sound effect first recorded in 1951 and used in dozens of films (including Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and Kill Bill).
You are X and I claim my five pounds - A British stock phrase commonly used in online discussion forums such as Usenet.
You have two cows - The beginning phrase for a series of political joke definitions.

Food and drink

File:Wheres the beef commercial.jpg

Where's the beef?

Alice B. Toklas brownie - A "magic" cookie containing cannabis.
Anna Ayala - Infamous for her numerous tort lawsuits against corporations, notably the chili finger allegation against fast-food restaurant Wendy's.
Boneless Fish - A frozen fish scaled, gutted and deboned and then glued to its original shape using a food-grade enzyme without cooking.
Bread clip - A device used to hold plastic bags (usually those containing sliced bread) closed.
Casu marzu - A cheese with an aging process involving the deliberate introduction of cheese fly larvae, which are only optionally removed before consumption.
Chubby bunny - A common (but sometimes lethal!) game played with marshmallows.
Civet coffee - isn't coffee made from civets, but rather from ordinary coffee beans the civet has, well, excreted.
Cola wars - A marketing battle between Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
Deep fried Mars bar - A Scottish delicacy.
Takeru Kobayashi - A slightly-built Japanese competitive eater. He has consumed 53 1/2 Nathan's Famous hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes (the world record) and holds a host of other eating records.
Kumis - A traditional drink of the people of Central Asia made from fermenting mare's milk.
List of misleading food names — such as Welsh rabbit or Bombay duck.
OpenCola - The world's first open-source beverage.
Pizza delivery - The process, perils, and pop-culture paeans to getting the hot cheesy dish to your door.
Sealed crustless sandwich - A patented peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Spoo - the most delicious foodstuff amongst all alien species of Babylon 5
Stinky tofu - Fermented soybean curd is apparently a delicacy for some people. One external link describes its scent as "a used tampon baking in the desert."
Tea Sucking - An Australian method for drinking tea through biscuits.
Sonya Thomas - A slightly-built Korean-American competitive eater. She has consumed 37 Nathan's Famous hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes (an American and female record) and holds a host of other eating records.
Where's the beef? - A stock phrase synonymous with "Where's the substance?", popularized by senior citizen Clara Peller starting in 1984.
Who ate all the pies? - A chant sung by football fans in England and Scotland, aimed at supposedly overweight footballers, officials or opposing supporters.

Sports

Bog snorkelling - Since 1985 ...
Matthew Brimson - English Cricketer made famous for a deliberate wardrobe malfunction.
Chess boxing - A sport that alternates rounds of speed chess and boxing.
Competitive eating - the main goal is the quick and vast consumption of food.
Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake-The Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake is an annual event held in May at Cooper's Hill near Gloucester
Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards - A British sportsman famous for coming last in the 1988 Winter Olympics ski-jump competition.
Extreme ironing - A sport whereby participants take an ironing board to a remote location and iron a few items of clothing.
Eddie Gaedel - 3'7", 65-pound baseball player. Career on-base percentage: 1.000.
Fierljeppen - A sport from the north of the Netherlands, where the objective is to jump over a trench.
Flugtag - Red Bull-sponsored event in which the objective is to fail to fly as spectacularly as possible. (At least that's what the competitors seem to be going for!)
Jeffrey Maier - The 12-year-old who helped the Yankees win the pennant.
Mendoza Line - Baseball's standard for underperformance.
The Play - Before going onto the field for your postgame musical performance, make sure the game is over.
Steve Bartman - Chicago Cubs fan best known as a scapegoat for the Cubs' failure to advance to the World Series in 2003.
Wife-carrying - A Finnish sport that is exactly what it sounds like (although one need not carry one's own wife)
Wooden spoon (award) - A Cambridge University tradition adopted by rugby and rugby league, the Wooden spoon is awarded to the last-placed team in a competition.

Legends and mythology

Bird people — The widely recurring motif in mythology and fiction of birds who are people, or people who are birds.
Bonnacon— A mythical ox which flings, from its rear and horns, burning poop at its enemies.
Dog spinning — Do Bulgarians really twizzle their domestic canines to foretell prosperity? The UK Green Party thinks so, and they're not happy about it.
Druids' glass — If you get hold of it, the snakes won't like you.
Energy Vampire — A "vampiric" individual that supposedly drains the life-force of other human beings.

Machine Elves — The entities that people claim they become aware of after having taken tryptamine based psychedelic drugs such as DMT.
Mermaid Problem — If you fall in love with a mermaid, how do you consummate your love?
Monkey-man of New Delhi — Reports in 2001 of a strange monkey-like creature appearing in New Delhi at night and attacking people.
Pickled dragon — A hoax of a hoax of a pickled dragon.
Popo Bawa — A bat-winged monster from Zanzibar that sodomizes people in election times.
Reptilian humanoid — A recurring theme in mythology, fiction, and especially science fiction, fringe theories, and conspiracy theories.
Sidehill Gouger — Fictional creatures said to inhabit the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and the southwestern sandhills of Saskatchewan - spoken of to confuse the gullible.
Vampire watermelon — A folk legend from the Balkan peninsula of south-eastern Europe based upon the idea that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire.
Vril — A belief that aliens controlled Nazi Germany and helped Hitler and others to escape to the South Pole when the war was lost.

Entertainment and media

File:Popeman.jpg

The Incredible Popeman with assorted anti-evil gear: "anti-demon gloves, anti-sin shield, holy lycra, chastity underwear, and rubber boots as a shield from divine electricity, with staff of light and faith, holy bible, holy water, and holy wine."

File:Kin-yan Lee in Forbidden City Cop.jpg

Kin-yan Lee, the typecast nosepicking, bearded transvestite

File:Insovietgeorgia.jpg

89-year-old Bagrat Topagua and his mother in a print advertisement, which was part of the In Soviet Georgia campaign.

4'33" - A piece of music, four minutes and thirty-three seconds in length, in which the musician does not play a note: the music is the ambient noise in the room.
"Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" (song) - A song sung by Big Bird of Sesame Street where he tries to discern the meaning of a very long word (which is actually the alphabet). (This is not an article about the other, more popular, alphabet song.)
Alternative 3 - An April Fools joke by an ITV science show leads many to believe that scientists were being kidnapped to prepare for the colonization of Mars.
Amish episode - A stereotypical episode of an American or Canadian science-fiction or horror television series that centers around the Amish or people meant to represent the Amish.
The Aristocrats - A joke rumoured to be both the "the world's funniest" and "the world's worst." Also a 2005 film of the same name.
Ashtar Galactic Command - a broadcast from another world, or someone's ingenious hoax? You decide.
Atuk - The only known, and most famous, cursed movie script...which, urban legend has it, was responsible for the deaths of several prominent and portly comedians and maybe a couple of their friends.
Banksy - An artist who smuggles his works into world-class museums.
Battle of the Cowshed and Battle of the Windmill - two famous battles from Animal Farm, complete with infoboxes listing casualties on both sides.
Bert is Evil - A popular humour website that depicts the Muppet character in various Photoshopped images alongside Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, and others.
The Canadian Conspiracy - A mockumentary released in 1985 that asserts that Canada is subverting the United States by taking over its media.
The Clan McDuck - A fictional family in the style of a Scottish clan, from which a great number of Walt Disney Company's comic book characters held their origin.
Conan the Librarian - a perennial parody of Conan the Barbarian that has appeared in film, television, comics, and fan fiction.
Contortion - Entertain an audience by folding and twisting your body, dislocating your joints, or stuffing yourself into a box.
Crazy Frog - One man's moped impression that went on to earn millions as a ring tone.
Early American editions of The Hobbit - Now collectors items because of their printing differences.
Endorian Holocaust - Did the debris of the Death Star result in catastrophe for the friendly Ewoks?
The Eye of Argon - An infamously bad heroic fantasy novella, written in 1970 by Jim Theis and circulated anonymously in science fiction fandom since then.
Exploding head - A gesture, usually fatal, of extreme bewilderment or anger.
The Funniest Joke in the World - A Monty Python sketch depicting the writing of a joke so funny that people die within seconds of hearing it.
Gadsby - A 50,100-word long notoriously lipogrammatic book, from 1939.
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead - An early catch phrase used on Saturday Night Live, based upon the dictator's lengthy death.
Gorillas in comics - A curious abundance of gorillas in comic book plots during the Silver Age of Comics.
Hammerspace - An extra-dimensional storage area used to explain how cartoon or anime characters can sometimes produce objects seemingly out of thin air.
Henry Darger - wrote 15,000-page MS with along with several thousand watercolor paintings and other drawings illustrating the story, who went to Mass several times daily.
In Soviet Georgia - A series of print and television advertisements for the Dannon company in the 1970s, purporting to show a bevy of centenarians who lived as long as they have by eating yogurt. An 89-year-old eats two cups of Dannon every day, which his mother absolutely loves.
The Incredible Popeman - The name of a Colombian comic book by Rodolfo Leon Valencia being released in tribute to Pope John Paul II, reincarnating him as a superhero who uses various superpowers to battle Satan and the forces of darkness.
Industrial musical - A musical production performed for the employees of a business, intended to create a feeling of being part of a team, and/or to educate and motivate the management and salespeople to improve sales and profit.
Interactive Urine Communicator - Star Trek technology? Not exactly.
Jumping the shark - Metaphor for the point at which one can speak of a TV show as having had its best days behind it.
Kin-yan Lee - A Hong Kong actor repeatedly cast in Stephen Chow films as a nosepicking, bearded transvestite.
Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den - A poem written by a Chinese poet in Classical Chinese. It can be comprehended and understood by all who understand the language, despite the fact that it consists entirely of the word "shi" repeated 92 times in different tones. Also known as "Shī Shì shí shī shǐ".
Michael Larson - A man who won over $100,000 in an American quiz show because he was able to notice a pattern in the flashing lights on the "Big Board"
The Cure for Insomnia - A movie that runs for 85 hours.
The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World - A movie that runs for 48 hours.
MacGuffin - It doesn't matter what it is, really, as long as it drives the plot of a movie along.
Manscaping - A shorthand for "landscaping" the male body, by shaving, trimming, waxing, or brushing the body hair, usually in an artful manner aimed at presenting that body in the best light possible.
Mexican standoff - Suspenseful (and not Mexican in the slightest) movie situation frequently used in old spaghetti Westerns, but revived by directors such as Quentin Tarantino and John Woo, in which two or more characters have weapons aimed at each other.
Mull of Kintyre test - When can a human penis be broadcast on British television?
Musikalisches Würfelspiel - A system written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in which the musical piece is decided randomly by playing dice.
Naked Came the Stranger - Journalists prove a point when their intentionally awful sex novel becomes a bestseller.
P Funk mythology - An article about the whimsical universe surrounding the P Funk all stars.
Pink Floyd pigs - The band's recurring props and references.
Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome - a tragic condition suffered by some young characters on Soap Operas.
Stinking badges - Possibly the most frequently quoted and misquoted line from a movie ever.
Super Mario 128 - A mysterious Mario game supposedly in production.
Tooth Fairy Rule - Rule of thumb for writing science fiction.
Le Train de Nulle Part - A French novel, 233 pages long, written without verbs.
Tromboon - An unusual instrument, with an even more unusual sound sample.
Turn-On - An ABC comedy series that was cancelled and taken off the air even before the first episode had finished.
Very special episode - a genre of television episodes with controversial life lessons interweaved into the storyline, popularized by Blossom
Walking like an Egyptian - Ancient Egyptians walked just like everyone else, but modern Music Hall performers and catwalk models have walked in a quite unusual fashion.
Watch the K-Foundation Burn a Million Quid - A documentary film of the K Foundation burning a million pounds in cash.
William Shatner's musical career - His rendition of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds regularly wins radio station competitions to find the "worst music of all time".

Politics and ideology

51st state - A phrase used to describe potential additions to the United States of America. It is often used satirically to deride any nation that is considered to be "too friendly" with America.
Acoustic Kitty - failed CIA experiment at using a cat for covert surveillance.
Bagism - A social ideology created by the Beatle, John Lennon, and his wife, Yoko Ono, which involves wearing a bag over one's entire body to promote peace and equality.
Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions - An Australian group of subversive artists who deface tobacco and alcohol billboard advertisements in order to promote healthy living.
Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet - A pejorative term used by a Canadian politician to belittle a rival in 2003.
Cheese-eating surrender monkeys - Look out Lafayette!
Ferdinand Lop - Perpetual candidate for the French Presidency who ran on a platform of outlawing poverty after 10:00 PM.
Galambosianism - A short-lived doctrine of intellectual property absolutism, which never caught on as an idea because, under its own laws, originator Joseph Andrew Galambos was the only person allowed to disseminate it.
I Am Not Canadian - A parody of the Canadian television commercial, I Am Canadian, devised by a Toronto radio station and focusing upon French speakers from Quebec.
Ich bin ein Berliner - President Kennedy did not actually call himself a jelly donut in front of a German audience.
Let's trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle - A television show produced by the communist government of North Korea intended to educate the public on good and bad hairstyles.
List of nicknames used by George W. Bush - From "Boy Genius" to "Turd Blossom", and that's just for one top advisor, depending on his mood.
McGillicuddy Serious Party - A satirical political party in New Zealand.

File:Marijuana Party of Canada.gif

Marijuana Party of Canada

Marijuana Party of Canada - A Canadian federal political party whose platform is to end prohibition of cannabis. See also Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
Richard Nixon mask - one of the most popular masks in the U.S.
Official Monster Raving Loony Party - A British political party which does exactly what it says on the tin.
Rhinoceros Party of Canada - A registered political party in Canada, which often promised outlandishly impossible schemes designed to amuse and entertain the voting public.
Sea Shepherd, a non-governmental organization that uses pirate-like tactics to enforce environmental international law
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence - An organization of mostly gay men who dress as nuns, often on rollerskates.
Smurf Communism - Draws parallels between Marxism and the Smurfs, a former television cartoon show.
Tanganyika groundnut scheme - A brilliant scheme by the British Government to grow peanuts where there were none before (for good reason).
You forgot Poland - A quote by President George W. Bush of the United States made during the first presidential election debate on September 30, 2004.

Religion and spirituality

Cadaver Synod - In 897, Pope Stephen VII dug up the body of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, dressed the body in papal vestments and seated him on a throne while Pope Stephen read charges against him and conducted a trial.
Flying Spaghetti Monsterism - Satirical religion created to make fun of Intelligent Design
Harold Davidson - 'the prostitute's padre' from 1930s London, who was defrocked and died when he was eaten by a lion.
Holy Prepuce - One of several relics purported to be associated with Jesus. Also known as The Holy Foreskin.
Homosexuality and Voodoo - Surely a troll, you say? No! A perfectly legitimate article!
Invisible Pink Unicorn - A satire aimed at theistic beliefs. The satire consists of a goddess in the form of a unicorn that is paradoxically both invisible and pink.
Jedi census phenomenon - A phenomenon in which 390,000 British citizens listed their religion as Jedi Knight on a 2001 census form, which made Jedi the fourth-largest religion in England and Wales.
Pope Joan - Was there a female Pope?
Pope John XX - A non-existent Pope.
Pope Michael - Elected Pope in 1990 by a group of Conclavist or post-Sedevacantist Catholics to fill the vacancy they consider to have been caused by the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958.
Pornocracy - The period of the papacy in the early 10th century, beginning with Pope Sergius III from 904 and ending with the death of Pope John XII in 963. During this period, the popes were under the influence of corrupt women (though not necessarily prostitutes), especially Theodora and her daughter, Marozia. This period is also called the "Rule of the Harlots."
Space opera in Scientology doctrine - L. Ron Hubbard's history of the universe, including alien Invader Forces, "little orange-colored bombs that would talk" and brainwashing episodes in "a railway carriage quite like a British railway coach with compartments."
Timeline of unfulfilled Christian Prophecy - A record of events that were prophesized by leaders in the Christian church which never came to pass.
Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar - A 17th-century Irish bishop claimed to know the exact day, date and time of creation.
Xenu - An ancient interstellar dictator who unleashed a genocide which created Christianity and psychiatry and is "calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it."

Computers and the Internet

File:Accidental Tourist.jpg

Tourist guy

File:Glitch cityscrnshot.jpg

Glitch City

−0 — A negative number that computer programmers have to deal with
165 University Avenue — A small rented office building on University Avenue, the main commercial street in Palo Alto, California. Both Google and Paypal started there, among others.
69105 — 69 in hexadecimal is 105 in decimal; 69 in decimal is 105 in octal.
All your base are belong to us — An Engrish phrase that originated in a 1989 computer game, and sparked an Internet phenomenon in 2001 and 2002.
Archimedes Plutonium — An eccentric Usenet contributor who claims that the universe is a giant plutonium atom and that he is the world's greatest scientist.
Badger Badger Badger — A Macromedia Flash animation consisting mainly of images of badgers doing calisthenics, a mushroom in front of a tree and a snake in the desert.
Blinkenlights — DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN!
The Book of Mozilla — A well-known computer Easter egg found in the Netscape and Mozilla series of browsers.
Boss key — A special key or key combination used in computer games to quickly hide the game from superiors or coworkers.
The computers take over — A science-fiction scenario in which a supercomputer becomes intelligent and views humans as a threat to its safety. The computer will then try to wipe out the human race, or at least take control of it. Examples include The Terminator and The Matrix, among others.
The Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science — A 1990 academic paper which argues that computer programming should be understood as a branch of mathematics, and that the formal provability of a program is a major criterion for correctness.
Dogcow — a glyph from an old Apple font representing a creature that makes the noise "Moof!"
elgooG — Google's mirror image version, literally: all letters are displayed reverse order
Esoteric programming language — Refers to programming languages designed as a test of the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, or as jokes, and not with the intention of being adopted for real-world programming.
E.T. (video game) — A notoriously poor video game made for the Atari 2600 and subsequently used as landfill.
Freezie — An item found in Nintendo games.
FWAKs — Fake FAQs for video games. Not to be confused with IAQs (Infrequently Asked Questions.)
Gay Nigger Association of America — An Internet troll organization that primarily targets Internet communities in an effort to disrupt their normal activities and annoy their users.
Glitch City — A glitch filled city found in the first Pokémon games.
Infrequently Asked Questions (IAQs) — FAQs for fake video games. Not to be confused with FWAKs or Indoor air quality.
JFK: Reloaded — A video game released in 2004 where the player gets to assassinate president John F. Kennedy.
John Titor — The name of a purported time traveller from the year 2036. He posted on several time travel-related Internet bulletin boards during 2000/2001.
Kamelopedia - everything you didn't want to know, but including camels.
Lenna — How an image of a nude Playboy model became the industry-standard digital image compression test subject.
Mark V Shaney — A fake Usenet user whose computer-generated postings were created using Markov chain techniques.
Meow Wars — Perhaps the largest and longest-lasting flame war in the history of the Internet.
Minus world — A glitch in the original Super Mario Bros. game.
Office Assistant — Microsoft's anthropomorphic paperclip that pops up in Word 97.
OCT 31 = DEC 25 — How is Halloween the same as Christmas?
OS-tan — A small Internet phenomenon where certain types of software (including various Microsoft and Linux operating systems) are depicted as young Japanese women.
Pwn — A term used by the Internet gaming subculture which means to beat or dominate an opponent.
Quirkafleeg — This unusual manoeuvre whose name is inspired by the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers is required to get past one of the screens in the computer game Jet Set Willy
Time Cube — A concept postulating that time is cubic, not linear, and that there are four simultaneous days in a single rotation of the Earth.
Tourist guy — The picture of a Hungarian man and how it relates to 9/11.
Trojan room coffee pot — The fascinating target of the world's first webcam at the computer science department of Cambridge University.
Uncyclopedia — The website that Wikipedia attempts to parody (but fails miserably).
Utah teapot — A 3D model which has become a standard reference object (and something of an in-joke) in the computer graphics community.
Year 10,000 problem — The collective name for all potential software bugs that will emerge as the need to express years with five digits arises. In the months leading up to the beginning of the year 2000, the year 10,000 problem was given somewhat humorous exposure by people in the media.
Zeroth — an ordinal number particular in computing culture, among others.

Legal

Chewbacca Defense - A satirical term for any legal strategy that seeks to overwhelm its audience with nonsensical arguments.
Nix v. Hedden - The U.S. Supreme Court decides that the tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit.
Toy Biz v. United States - Are the X-Men humans under U.S. law?
United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and His Staff - Who has jurisdiction over Satan?
Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Georgia — Can a city require a business license for a talking cat, and does the cat have free-speech rights?

Economics

Ding Hai Effect - A sudden drop in the stock market that follows whenever Hong Kong actor Adam Cheng stars in a new TV show.

Military

Anglo-Zanzibar War - The world's shortest war. The sultan of Zanzibar capitulated after forty-five minutes.

Anti-tank dog - failed Soviet weapon of the Second World War.
Antonov A-40 flying tank - An experimental Soviet tank with wings and tailboom, meant to glide into the battlefield, ready for combat. Trials were unsuccessful.
Bat bomb - World War II plan to bomb Japan with bats carrying tiny Incendiary bombs.
Battle of Tanga - World War I battle where 8,000 British troops were defeated by a German-led force of 1,100 Askari's - aided by swarms of angry bees.
Chauchat - The worst machine gun ever invented.
Chicken powered nuclear bomb - The role of the domestic chicken in nuclear warfare.
Football war - A 6 day war fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969 ignited by a game of football (soccer).
Human torpedo - Human torpedoes or manned torpedoes were secret naval weapons of World War II.
Nils Olav - A King Penguin living in Edinburgh Zoo who is the Colonel-in-Chief of the Norwegian Royal Guards.
Project Habbakuk - A British plan to construct an aircraft carrier out of ice.
Project Pigeon - bombs guided by pigeon pecks.
Regalskeppet Vasa - A 17th century Swedish warship that sank before leaving the harbor on her maiden voyage and was recovered three centuries later.
Sticky bomb - The most unpopular weapon the British soldier has ever been asked to use.
Tachanka - Twentieth century chariot used in combat.
Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War - A "war" that lasted 335 years without a single shot being fired.
Truelove Eyre - A man who supposedly saved William the Conqueror's life during the Battle of Hastings.
Tsar Tank - A Imperial Russian tank designed as a tricycle with nine-metre wheels.
Who me? - A top secret stench weapon designed to be unobtrusively sprayed on German officers by French Resistance members. The plan was that this would totally embarrass the officer, and Germany would then lose the war.

Other miscellany

File:Tillie asburypark.JPG

Tillie

826 Valencia - San Francisco's "only independent pirate supply store."
Ampelmännchen - the East German little man on the traffic signal, designed to evoke communist imagery of the enthusiastic worker advancing to a utopian socialist future.
Baarle-Nassau - a municipality in the Netherlands, including small exclaves of Belgium, which in turn comprise even smaller exclaves of the Netherlands
Baldwin Street, Dunedin - a short suburban road in New Zealand which is reputedly the world's steepest street.
Blood circle - Used as part of Boy Scout terminology. When using a knife or axe it is the area within the radius of the arm and blade length combined.
Border between West Jersey and East Jersey - a specific border that has been disputed for years
Canard Digérateur or "Digesting Duck" — an automaton built to simulate a duck eating, digesting, and, well...
Can't sleep, clown will eat me - A stock phrase that's become a popular joke-explanation for insomnia.
Cattle mutilation - The alleged killing and then subsequent mutilation of cattle, sheep or horses by unknown perpetrators (possibly aliens).
Chicken sexer - A person who has been specially trained to determine the sex of chicken hatchlings.
Colletto Fava - an Italian hill with an enormous pink stuffed bunny
Collier Motors - An American Motors Corporation dealer that is still in business despite the fact that AMC stopped manufacturing cars in 1987.
Crank - A pejorative term for a person who writes or speaks in an authoritative fashion about a particular subject, often in science, but is alleged to have false or even ludicrous beliefs.
Erving's Location - A town in New Hampshire with a population of 1 (according to the Census).
Fictional country - A country that is made up, and does not exist in real life. Fictional lands appear most commonly as settings in literature or movies.
George P. Burdell - a fictitious student officially enrolled at Georgia Tech in 1927.
The Headington Shark - Oxford man has had a 25 foot long sculpture of a shark embedded headfirst into the roof of his unassuming house since 1986.
Here - This is where you are.
Icelandic Phallological Museum - A museum in Iceland devoted soley to collecting penis specimens and penis-related art.
Intentionally blank page - The self-refuting meta-reference that is "this page intentionally left blank".
Jesus nut - The bolt on the top of a helicopter that connects it to the rotor blades.
Largest photographs in the world - Includes information on print and digital photos that are reputedly the world's largest.
Mill Ends Park - The smallest park in the world (452 in² / 0.3 m²); located in Portland, Oregon.
NORAD Santa tracking program - A tradition with the American and Canadian military to track Santa for children.
Passenger train human waste disposal - Why passengers must be discouraged from flushing or using toilets while the train is at a station.
Pointy hat - A distinctive feature of a wide range of people during history.
Professional farter - paid to be flatulent
Pruitt-Igoe - A housing project in St. Louis that consisted of 33 11-story apartment buildings. Design defects and vandalism led to its demolition after only 16 years.
Queens Giant - a tulip tree located in northeastern Queens, New York, that is confirmed to be the oldest living thing in the New York metropolitan area, as well as the tallest tree in the NY metro area. As of 2005, it is over 450 years old and 134 feet tall, and was alive before the birth of Shakespeare.
RAS syndrome - Redundant Acronym Syndrome Syndrome, a peculiar form of TLA
Recursive Acronym - an acronym where one letter (usually the first) stands for the acronym itself. Perhaps the best known recursive acronyms are GNU (GNU's Not Unix) and WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator).
Henry Richardson a 77-year old man who has been known to threaten, insult, and start fistfights with people who try to go through his property to get to the highest point in Rhode Island.
School bus yellow - a color especially formulated for use on U.S. school buses
Spork - A cross between a spoon and a fork
Target fixation - To become so fixated on an object you are trying to avoid that you collide with it.
Tillie - An odd painting of a grinning face, that used to be on the Palace Amusements building in Asbury Park, New Jersey before it was demolished.
Toilet roll holder-- a surprisingly complex device for holding a roll of toilet paper
Toilet-related injury - as it states.
The Tony Danza (sex move) - A switch to anal sex involving a yelled "Tony Danza!" and a punch to the back of the head
Two plus two make five - A phrase which is sometimes used to denote illogical statements, especially those made for ideological purposes only.
Video-Enhanced Grave Marker Graves with video screens and speakers on them.

Unusual lists and categories

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President Lisa Simpson from List of fictional U.S. Presidents

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