Wikipedia:WikiReader/Encyclopaedia of the unusual
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Potential contents for an encyclopaedia of the unusual
[edit] Art, architecture, and archaeology
- Caganer - A traditional Spanish statue (similar to a garden gnome) that depicts a person defecating.
- The Headington Shark - A 25ft long shark sculpture sticking out the roof of the artist's house.
- Banksy - An artist who smuggles his works into world-class museums.
- 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.
- 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.
- Mexican Perforation - A French artistic movement that expresses itself in underground places.
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[edit] Biology and medicine
- Timothy (tortoise) - A tortoise that was present during the bombardment of Sevastapol during the Crimean War in 1854, finally dying in 2004.
- Belly button fluff - A study proves that most fluff is blue and that women are less likely to have it.
- Bloop - does a mystery sound from the bottom of the sea indicate that the Kraken may awake ..?
- 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.
- Electrode-guided rats- Implanted electrodes let researchers "steer the animal over an obstacle course, making it twist, turn and even jump on demand"
- GoldenPalace.com Monkey - A new species of Monkey that was officially named after the internet casino following an auction
- Human penis size - Scientific data on average size, racial variations, surgical enlargement and myths
- 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.
- Photic sneeze reflex - People who sneeze when suddenly exposed to bright light
- 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.
- Sterile Atomic Fly - The United Nations solution to fighting Sleeping sickness in Africa.
- Spontaneous human combustion - The burning of a person's body without any apparent source of ignition
- 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 consciousness.
- Exploding whale - Real whales exploded in Oregon in 1970 and Taiwan in 2004.
- Mike the Headless Chicken - A rooster that lived for 18 months with its head cut off.
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[edit] Chemistry
- Acetylseryltyrosylserylisol...serine - An actual name for a chemical that is 1185 letters long.
- Dihydrogen monoxide - A chemical that, under the right conditions, can be deadly to all forms of plant and animal life.
- Methionylalanylthreonyl...leucine - An actual name for a protein that is 64,060 letters long.
- Polywater - Cold War scientists in Russia create a polymer out of water.
- Thiotimoline - A fictional chemical which dissolves before it comes into contact with water.
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[edit] Computing
- Bert is Evil - A popular humour website that depicts the Muppet character in various Photoshopped images alongside Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, and others.
- 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.
- Glitch City - A glitch filled city found in the first Pokémon games.
- JFK: Reloaded - A video game released in 2004 where the player gets to assassinate president John F. Kennedy.
- 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.
- Office Assistant - Microsoft's anthropomorphic paperclip that pops up in Word 97.
- 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
- Trojan room coffee pot - The fascinating target of the world's first webcam at the computer science department of Cambridge University.
- 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.
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[edit] Culture and society
- Crushing by elephant - An unusual form of capital punishment used throughout history.
- Dick Assman - Pronounced Dick Oss-Man, he is the owner of a gas station in Saskatchewan and the subject to obvious jokes.
- February 30 - Throughout history, some nations had 30 days in February.
- Le Pétomane - A French entertainer famous in Victorian times for breaking wind at will.
- 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 referring to all porters by the name "George" regardless of their actual name.
- Icelandic Phallological Museum - A museum in Iceland devoted solely to collecting penis specimens and penis-related art.
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[edit] Education
- 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.
- How to keep an idiot busy - No description of article yet. Please return in five minutes. See also How to keep a genius busy.
- Lighting farts - The act of igniting gases produced by human flatulence.
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[edit] Economics
- Cola wars - A marketing battle between Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
- 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.
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[edit] Food and drink
- 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!
- List of misleading food names — such as Welsh rabbit or Bombay duck.
- 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?
- ISO 3103 - The ISO standard cup of tea.
- Mucophagy - The consumption of mucus
- Supertaster - A person who has an unusually strong sense of taste.
- Alice B. Toklas brownie - A "magic" cookie containing cannabis.
- Boneless Fish - A frozen fish scaled, gutted and deboned and then glued to its original shape using a food-grade enzyme without cooking.
- 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.
- OpenCola - The world's first open-source beverage.
- Sealed crustless sandwich - A patented peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
- 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.
- 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."
- 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.
- Spork - A cross between a spoon and a fork
- Deep fried Mars bar - A Scottish delicacy.
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[edit] Geography and places
- Jewish Autonomous Oblast - A region in Eastern Russia that borders China. Only 1.2% of the population is Jewish.
- 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.
- Sealand - A micronation located six miles (10 km) off the coast of Suffolk, England, with a population that rarely exceeds five.
- Zzyzx Road - Purported to be the lexicographically greatest (alphabetically last) street name in the world.
- 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.
- Here - This is where you are.
- Mill Ends Park - The smallest park in the world (452 in² / 0.3 m²); located in Portland, Oregon.
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[edit] Geology, geophysics, and mineralogy
- Project Mohole - A 1961 attempt to drill through the Earth's crust.
[edit] History
- Boston Molasses Disaster - Twenty-one people die when a confectionery factory explodes, sending a wave of molasses down the streets of Boston.
- History of elephants in Europe - It wasn't just Hannibal.
- 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.
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[edit] Language and linguistics
- Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 - A name given to a Swedish child by his parents in May 1996 (and pronounced as "Albin").
- Cadigan - These words occupy a syntactic space between nouns and pronouns. Examples include thingummy, thingy, and whatchamacallit.
- Dord - An English word which never existed, yet was listed in Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition from 1935 to 1939.
- 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.
- Faux Cyrillic - A simple way to give ordinary English text some much-needed "Яussiaи flavour".
- Longest word in English - Floccinaucinihilipilification and others.
- 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.
- Oink - What do pigs say in Swedish, Russian or Korean?
- Portuguese profanity A list of foreign profane words? Ah, Wikipedia
- Spanish profanity A list of foreign profane words? Ah, Wikipedia!
- French (euphemism) The use of the word French in unusual ways.
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[edit] Law
- Anna Ayala - Infamous for her numerous tort lawsuits against corporations, notably the chili finger allegation against fast-food restaurant Wendy's.
- 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 - A man sues the devil for causing him distress. Surprisingly, this lawsuit was never contested.
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[edit] Literature
- English as She Is Spoke - A Portuguese-English conversational guide or phrase book that is regarded as a classic of unintentional humour.
- Voynich manuscript - A mysterious illustrated book of unknown contents, written some 500 years ago by an anonymous author in an unidentified alphabet and unintelligible language.
- Early American editions of The Hobbit - Now collectors items because of their printing differences.
- 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.
- 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".
- Le Train de Nulle Part - A French novel, 233 pages long, written without verbs.
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[edit] Mathematics
- Ham sandwich theorem - Can a ham sandwich be bisected with a two-dimensional plane?
- Infinite monkey theorem - An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will produce all possible written texts.
- Squaring the circle - It is impossible, using only compass and straightedge, to construct a square with the same area as a given circle. This problem occupied mathematicians for centuries.
- Ulam spiral - A bored mathematician discovers an unusual numerical pattern while doodling
- 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.
- Calculator words - Words that can be read on numeral calculators by being read upside down.
- 69105 - 69 in hexadecimal is 105 in decimal; 69 in decimal is 105 in octal.
- 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.
[edit] Media
- ETAOIN SHRDLU - A cryptic phrase that has accidentally made its way into newspapers and other publications.
- Sokal Affair - A famous hoax played by physicist Alan Sokal on the postmodernist humanities academics world.
- 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.
- The Canadian Conspiracy - A mockumentary released in 1985 that asserts that Canada is subverting the United States by taking over its media.
- Mull of Kintyre test - When can a human penis be broadcast on British television?
- Naked Came the Stranger - Journalists prove a point when their intentionally awful sex novel becomes a bestseller.
- Turn-On - An ABC comedy series that was cancelled and taken off the air even before the first episode had finished.
- Page Three girl - A woman who poses for topless photographs published in UK tabloid newspapers.
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[edit] Music
- Hitler has only got one ball - Was the führer only half a man?
- 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.
- Heavy metal umlaut - Än umlaut övër lëttërs ïn thë nämë öf ä heavy metal bänd ïntëndëd tö gïvë thëïr lögö ä töügh Germanic fëël.
- 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.
- 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.
- Crazy Frog - One man's moped impression that went on to earn millions as a ring tone.
- Tromboon - An unusual instrument, with an even more unusual sound sample .
- 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".
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[edit] Philosophy
- 'Pataphysics - A parody of science that purports to study what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics.
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[edit] Physics and astronomy
- Apollo moon landing hoax accusations - Fake photos, slow-motion cameras and secret studios. All directed by Stanley Kubrick.
- Cartoon physics - Animation allows for natural laws to be ignored for the sake of humor.
- History of perpetual motion machines - People have expended wasteful amounts of energy for over 1000 years researching this concept.
- Quantum immortality - An infinite amount of parallel universes means that any one person will always live forever.
- 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.
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[edit] Politics and government
- David Rice Atchison - On 4 March 1849, America was without a president. Many people think that Atchison stepped in for a day.
- 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.
- Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet - A pejorative term used by a Canadian politician to belittle a rival in 2003.
- Ferdinand Lop - Perpetual candidate for the French Presidency who ran on a platform of outlawing poverty after 10:00 PM.
- Ich bin ein Berliner - President Kennedy did not actually call himself a jelly donut in front of a German audience.
- McGillicuddy Serious Party - A satirical political party in New Zealand.
- 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.
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[edit] Psychology
- Alien hand syndrome - An unusual mental disorder whereby one of the sufferer's hands seems to take a life of its own.
- Capgras delusion - Has your brother or spouse been replaced by an identical looking imposter?
- Dreamachine - A device made with a light bulb and a record turntable that reportedly induces lucid dreaming.
- Foreign accent syndrome - A rare medical condition whereby sufferers speak their native language with a foreign accent.
- Exploding head syndrome - Some people hear a massive explosion that wakes them up after being asleep for an hour or two.
- Phineas Gage - A 19th century man who survived a traumatic brain injury and became an important figure in the development of Neuroscience
- Klüver-Bucy syndrome - A behavioral disorder that can produce hypersexuality, as well as exploring the world around them using their tongues and fingers.
- 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.
- Machine Elves - The entities that people claim they become aware of after having taken tryptamine based psychedelic drugs such as DMT.
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[edit] Religion and beliefs
- Sedlec ossuary - A Christian chapel decorated by the bones of approximately 40,000 people.
- Year zero - Was there a year between 1 BC and 1 AD?
- Cadaver Synod - In 897, Pope Stephen VI 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 Christ. Also known as The Holy Foreskin.
- Jedi census phenomenon - A phenomenon where, in 2001, a number of people listed their religion as Jedi Knight on their census form, which made Jedi the fourth largest religion in the UK.
- 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 discovers the exact day, date and time of creation.
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[edit] Royalty, nobility, and heraldry
- Jack Black - Queen Victoria's officially appointed rat-catcher and mole destroyer.
- Emperor Norton - The man who claimed to be "Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico" in 1859.
- Truelove Eyre - A man who supposedly saved William the Conqueror's life during the Battle of Hastings.
- 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.
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[edit] Sport and games
- Chess-related deaths - People killed while playing chess.
- Dwarf tossing - A humorous sporting competition where well-padded dwarfs are thrown by competitors. The article details legal challenges to this "sport", often considered contrary to human dignity.
- Bog snorkelling - Since 1985... in Wales where else?
- Matthew Brimson - English Cricketer made famous for a deliberate wardrobe malfunction.
- 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.
- 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.
- Who ate all the pies? - A chant sung by football fans in England and Scotland, aimed at supposedly overweight footballers, officials or opposing supporters.
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[edit] Technology
- Rocket mail - The delivery of mail by rocket or missile, attempted by various organisations in many different countries, with varying levels of success.
- Spittoon - An article of furniture made for spitting into, especially by users of chewing tobacco.
- Tacoma Narrows Bridge - A mile long suspension bridge in Washington State that was destroyed by wind.
- Tin-foil hat - Headgear that allegedly prevents a person from having their minds read or controlled.
- Japanese toilet - The most advanced toilets in the world with computers, nozzles and flashing lights.
- Interactive Urine Communicator - Star Trek technology? Not exactly.
- Canard Digérateur or "Digesting Duck" — an automaton built to simulate a duck eating, digesting, and, well...
[edit] Transport
- 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.
- Dymaxion car - 1933, 3 wheels, 20ft long, 11 passengers, 120mph and a steering wheel that turned the car in the opposite direction.
- Merhan Karimi Nasseri - An Iranian refugee who has been living in Charles de Gaulle Airport since 1988.
- Metrophile - A person who loves underground railway systems.
- Passenger train human waste disposal - Why passengers must be discouraged from flushing or using toilets while the train is at a station.
- School bus yellow - a color especially formulated for use on U.S. school buses
- Pimpmobile - A large luxury automobile that has been heavily customized in a garish, extravagant style to advertise its owner's wealth and importance.
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[edit] War
- Anti-tank dog - failed Soviet weapon of the Second World War.
- Bat bomb - World War II plan to bomb Japan with bats carrying tiny Incendiary bombs.
- Chauchat - The worst machine gun ever invented.
- Football War - A 6 day war fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969 over a game of football (soccer).
- Project Habakkuk - A British plan to construct an aircraft carrier out of ice.
- Hyphen War - The battle over how to spell "Czechoslovakia."
- 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"
- Pykrete - A bullet resistant frozen water compound.
- Endorian Holocaust - Did the debris of the Death Star result in catastrophe for the friendly Ewoks?
- Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch - A fictional weapon depicted in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It is an ancient Christian artifact that explodes when its pin is pulled out. Its humour is derived from its anachronistic juxtaposition.
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