Learn English – Intentionally useless or meaningless

single-word-requests

Is there an adjective that describes something that is intentionally useless or meaningless (as a joke or prank)?

For example, an application that doesn't do anything when you click on its buttons, or a very long joke that, upon finishing reading it, turns out to be not a joke but just an open-ended (deliberately) meaningless story.

For the application example, I can precede the word application with prank as an adjective but in the case of the joke, prank joke doesn't sound idiomatic.

Best Answer

There's a term for the joke. From Wikipedia:

In its original sense, a shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax or a pointless punchline.

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