a practical joke

基本解释

Godel's incompleteness theorem seems like a practical joke.
哥德爾的不完全定理就象一個惡作劇.
"When Obama won, my colleagues played a practical joke on me -- they made me wear a suit, a tie, and took pictures of me posing as Obama," Anas told reporters on Saturday.
阿納斯上周六接受記者採訪時說：“奧巴馬勝選那天，同事們搞了個惡作劇---他們讓我穿上西裝，打上領帶，扮成奧巴馬拍照。”
In England, jokes are only played in the morning as it is considered bad luck to play a practical joke on someone after noon。
在英格蘭，衹有上午才能和人開玩笑，過了中午的惡作劇會被人認爲是不吉利的。
edu.sina.com.cn

So there is this story about his Uncle Hoskins who takes his horse and cart with Richard in the back and drives it into the middle of the Mississippi River as a kind of practical joke on Richard.
有個故事是關於他的叔叔Hoskins的,他讓理查坐在他的馬車後,卻連人帶車掉到密西西比河裡,這被作爲了一個理查的真實笑話。
耶魯公開課 - 1945年後的美國小說課程節選

In some countries, bamboozled bargain-hunters, abandoned in an obscure field as part of a giant practical joke, would probably turn furiously on their tormentors.
ECONOMIST: An ingenious satire on supermarkets has Czechs chuckling
The real question facing industrialised countries is how to create a legal environment that counts cyberaggression not as a kind of practical joke, but a grave breach of the legal order, akin to terrorism, international organised crime, or aggression against another state.
ECONOMIST: Cyberwarfare
Second, please stop comparing Twitter to Zynga (which is a game publisher) and Groupon (which is an accounting practical joke).
FORBES: Yes, Twitter is Worth at Least $7 Billion