Someone in England wrote this article, and then I Americanized it, turning every wry witticism into toilet humor.
I also swapped out odd-toed ungulates for Alpha Flight, because they’re terrible, whereas ungulates are an alright order of mammals in my book.
Wikipedia page: Donaudampf schiffahrtselektrizitatenhaupt betriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft (all one word)
Which is what? An incredibly long German word.
Huh? The German language loves itself some compound words (in German: kompositwortswiemädupp), and this one of its longest. It means ‘Association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services’ which is becoming more and more common in today’s steamboat-based economy.
How to use it in a sentence: Assume you started losing your audience halfway through the word and bring them back with the good stuff. “Athought a fine example of sesquipedalianism, Donaudampf schiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft will never recover from last month’s spicy sex scandal.”
Wikipedia page: The Alpha Flight family of entries
Which is what? Canada’s answer to The Avengers
Huh? It’s one thing when the entry for Superman is 50 times longer than the one for Man & Superman. It’s quite another to make an individual page for the headquarters of a team other comic book characters make fun of. Standalone entries also waste electricity for Alpha Flight’s back-up teams, and characters who died in their first appearance.
How to use it in a sentence: “Alpha Flight hasn’t really been able to carry a book since Wolverine quit.”
Wikipedia page: The Katzenklavier
Which is what? It’s a cat piano.
Huh? Yep, a piano made of cats. You press keys like you would on a normal keyboard, except the hammers hit specially tonally selected cats’ outstretched tails, making them meow out in pain. Weird, right? But sensible, when you think about it. Those “Meow Mix” commercials aren’t going to torture themselves. Sadly, no instructions for how to modify one to accommodate the cast of The Jersey Shore.
How to use it in a sentence: “My wife Yoko Ono and I are recording an album of blues classics stripped of every third beat and instead of guitar, a Katzenklavier.”
Wikipedia page: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Which is what? A very bizarre sentence.
Huh? You’re going to wish you didn’t know this, but buffalo has just enough versatility and inertia of plurality to build a grammatically coherent thought that won’t be useful till the next Ice Age. Using homonyms and homophones, the arrangement of nouns, verbs, adjectives and place names makes perfect grammatical sense, and makes you sound like a genius and a tool at the same time. It describes a herd of buffalo in the city of Buffalo who intimidate (“buffalo”) other buffalo beneath them. See? It wasn’t worth learning, was it?
How to use it in a sentence: Using it in a sentence is all you can do, and, in fact, the only reason this entry exists. Nevertheless, our advice is don’t.
Wikipedia page: Foreign Accent Syndrome
Which is what? A strange mental condition.
Huh? A very, very rare side effect of certain brain injuries where patients wake up speaking their native tongue – but in a totally different accent, with Englishmen speaking like New Yorkers and vice versa, and Americans sounding like Keanu Reeves in Dracula. It’s nigh-on unbelievable, but it’s actually happened. Wikipedia says so. Can you imagine how maddening it must be? Cursed never to use your own voice, with your loved ones unsympathetically insisting you’re taking this joke too far.
How to use it in a sentence: “Oi, you lot! Don’t be havin’ a larff at me Foreign Accent Syndrome, now, or I’ll box your ears, so I will!”
Wikipedia page: Uncombable Hair Syndrome
Which is what? A strange hair-based condition.
Huh? No, it isn’t just an official term for “curly hair”, but a genuine condition, whereby an unusual structural anomaly of the hair means the mess on your scalp (typically straw-colored or whitish-blond) cannot be combed flat…yet. Get on it, science.
How to use it in a sentence: “No, it’s not uncombable hair syndrome; they’re pretty normal pubes.”
Wikipedia page: The Original Whizzinator
Which is what? A piece of avoiding getting busted for taking drugs.
Huh? This was a kit for cheating urine-sample tests. It even heated up the liquid to room temperature, and included fake penises (individual skin tones available on request) to fool any inspector. The manufacturer has been convicted of ‘selling drug paraphernalia’ and has been sentenced for 6 months in jail, where he’ll no doubt undergo… drug tests. Sometimes, life is poetry.
How to use it in a sentence: “My girlfriend’s into some bedroom games I’m not entirely comfortable with. I need to get a Whizzinator.”
Wikipedia page: Wolfe+585, Senior
Which is what? It’s a name. Yes, a name.
Huh? It’s the shortened form of the longest name, ever. It starts with “Adolph Blaine Charles David Earl Frederick Gerald Hubert Irvin John Kenneth Lloyd Martin Nero Oliver Paul Quincy Randolph Sherman Thomas Uncas Victor William Xerxes Yancy Zeus” and goes on for ages. Its bearer once complained that newspaper misspelled it, and had a correction printed. No, really.
How to use it in a sentence: Frankly, who has the breath?
Wikipedia page: Leck mich im Arsch
Which is what? It’s a canon written by none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Huh? This canon’s title transliterates to mean “Lick me in the ass” – though the more idiomatic translation is “Get stuffed.” Titled Let Us Be Glad by publishers, its original lyrics, “Lick me in the ass, quickly,” were replaced with “Let us be glad, grumbling is in vain,” which is pretty empty comfort if you’re already engaged in the first version.
How to use it in a sentence: “Since I am the lead character in a typical German porno, kindly Leck mich im Arsch. Ah…thank you.”
Wikipedia page: Hitler bacon or ‘Hitlerszalonna’
Which is what? Bacon for people who don’t have bacon.
Huh? We don’t mean to rail on Germany, but Hitler and bacon together comprise 8% of the internet, so we couldn’t leave this one off the list. During WW2, bacon was in short supply. As a bizarre substitute, Hungarian soldiers fighting for Germany were given very dense jam made from plums and the like, hardened into the shape of a brick, to be sliced up and cooked. They called it… Hitler Bacon. That’s sort of like building a pinewood derby car and naming it Killbot 3000.
How to use it in a sentence: “Despite having entirely parve ingredients, Hitler bacon will never pass kosher inspection.”
Wikipedia page: Fox tossing
Which is what? Exactly what it sounds like.
Huh? Cruelty and point systems go together like human and nature. In the 17th and 18th centuries, people bundled animals into leather slings and fired the poor beasts into the air for sport. Maybe those foxes were shredding local chicken populations, but it’s not like positive reinforcement is going to stop them. Not content with bite and claw wounds from foxes, slingers expanded their predator-tossing game to wildcats.
How to use it in a sentence: This phrase is ripe to return as some sort of political expression, in which a nearly harmless annoyance is riled into a hot mess. “What if all this uninformed Tea Party nonsense fox-tosses Christine O’Donnell into the Senate?”
Wikipedia page: The small penis rule
Which is what? A trick used by lawyers to get their writer clients out of libel trouble.
Huh? Essentially, it fixes situations where Mr Famous Person A complains that Writer B has written a character that’s essentially them in a bad light, but with a different name. The lawyer now uses the rule. “But for this character to be like you, you’d also have to have a small penis to prove the similarity, as the character definitely has a small penis. Do you have a small penis, Mr Famous Person A?” Didn’t think so…
How to use it in a sentence: Probably best you don’t court slander or libel charges, unless you want to face down fictional rocker Rick Dagger.