Perhaps the most extraordinary example is Mountain's Edge, a half-built suburb near Las Vegas, where an ersatz archaeological dig has been incorporated into a park.

ECONOMIST: How to reconcile archaeology with suburban growth

Quite a lot of ersatz Holmes betrays itself in the field of idiom, but Mr. Horowitz turns out to be notably sure-footed.

WSJ: Book Review: The House of Silk

There, men photograph their children in front of ersatz Mayan fountains and what looks like a Baroque church (actually a market where you can buy shoes, basketball shirts and pet rabbits).

ECONOMIST: Segregation and shopping

Until Germany's ersatz recovery, based on exports, becomes a genuine one, based on domestic spending, there will be few jobs to push the unemployed into.

ECONOMIST: Ersatz Europeans

Was it true, the only socially acceptable reason to wear a top hat is if you're a Central Park buggy driver, an ersatz hippie at Burning Man or Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in "Dumb and Dumber"?

WSJ: Time to Top Up?

Most prominent was the British paleontologist, biologist, and comparative anatomist Richard Owen, who coined the term dinosauria (Greek for "great lizards"), and in 1853 opened a Dinosaur Court in London's Crystal Palace, holding a banquet in the belly of an ersatz iguanodon.

FORBES: Magazine Article

This Columbus Day, the Italian-American groups that traditionally lay a wreath at the base of the monument can lean it against a purple sofa in Mr. Nishi's ersatz living room.

WSJ: Discovering Columbus | A Monumental Problem | By James Panero

On either side of the road, up the green slope and down on the lake side, turnouts and driveways for lovely inns, kooky ersatz Austrian mini-villages, hip coffee houses and eccentric galleries appear invitingly like pictures in a pop-up book.

BBC: Lonely Planet��s top 10 spots in Central America

Too vindictive for comfort, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler are the creepy brother-and-sister ice-dancing champs, Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg, ersatz heavies in matching pink tulle (props to costume designer Julie Weiss, who clearly had herself a ball).

CNN: Review: 'Blades of Glory' scores hilariously