a practical joke

基本解释

Godel's incompleteness theorem seems like a practical joke.
哥德尔的不完全定理就象一个恶作剧.
"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.
阿纳斯上周六接受记者采访时说：“奥巴马胜选那天，同事们搞了个恶作剧---他们让我穿上西装，打上领带，扮成奥巴马拍照。”
In England, jokes are only played in the morning as it is considered bad luck to play a practical joke on someone after noon。
在英格兰，只有上午才能和人开玩笑，过了中午的恶作剧会被人认为是不吉利的。
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.
有个故事是关于他的叔叔Hoskins的,他让理查坐在他的马车后,却连人带车掉到密西西比河里,这被作为了一个理查的真实笑话。
耶鲁公开课 - 1945年后的美国小说课程节选

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