shenanigans

Shenanigans is mischief with nothing at stake. Nobody knows where the word comes from — it turned up in American slang in the 1850s — which suits a word this unserious. It is almost always plural, and it arrives after the fact, from someone who has just walked in on it. In the animation, a man hangs upside down in a web of string tied to a coat rack, a lamp, a chair and a teacup.