practical joke

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Only a handful of Conservative MPs voted for him as speaker: one constituent says he was chosen by Labour as a “practical joke”.
只有议会中的一些保守人士投票赞成他作为发言人：某个选民说他被工党选中纯属“恶作剧”。
Note: These tweeters may well be Harvard doctoral candidates playing an elaborate practical joke, but the verbiage and profile photos seem to indicate otherwise.
注：这些微博文章可能是哈佛博士研究生精心设计的恶作剧，但是从措辞和简介照片来看似乎不像。
"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。”

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

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
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

a joke that makes someone seem silly and involves a physical action rather than words

A practical joke is a trick that is intended to embarrass someone or make them look ridiculous.