Who doesn't love Wikipedia? 1. Professors grading term papers, and 2. Conservapedia.

Professors, you're wrong like King Kong. Wikipedia's error rate is comparable to the Encyclopedia Britannica's, according to the Wikipedia article on the subject. (Which, of course, requires cleanup. That's practically recursion.)

And Conservapedia? They hate everything. They're even rewriting the Bible because they don't think Jesus is Christian enough.

The fact is, humanity has assembled a remarkable repository of magnificent, amazing and useful knowledge -- all free to read. The worst thing you can say about Wikipedia is it's addictive. We've lost whole weeks topic-jumping, and can get from Mercury to underwear in just five clicks.

It's an interesting world, though not all of it has an actual purpose. When you document everything, you're going to end up with some incredible, but pointless, entries. Below are our favorites, but what are yours?

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 is 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. "Although 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 backup 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 special, 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 "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 is, 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. Englishmen speak like New Yorkers and vice versa, and Americans sound like Keanu Reeves in "Bram Stoker's 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 device to avoid 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 to six months in jail, where he'll no doubt undergo drug testing. 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 a 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 percent of the Internet, so we couldn't leave this one off the list. During WWII, 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 was going to stop them. Not content with bite and claw wounds from foxes, slingers expanded their predator-tossing game to wild cats.

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 him 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.