1st april is a day to be careful, or you could easily get tricked by someone. its april fools day, a day when people traditionally like to try to make a fool of someone else and laugh at them.
there are lots of theories surrounding the origins of the day, but one explanation is connected with the change in the calendar in the 16th century, which meant that 1st april was no longer the beginning of the year. those who still celebrated the new year on 1st april were called fools.
so what kind of pranks do people play on april fools day? well, there are lots of simple tricks that you can play on your friends. for example, you could wear a black sweater and pull a piece of white thread through it, so that people try to pull it off. you could change the time on someones alarm clock so that theyre late for work. or glue a coin to the floor and see how many people try to pick it up.
all these are small-scale practical jokes which you might play on one other person or a few people. but theres also a tradition of large companies attempting to fool a lot of people. for example a burger restaurant once claimed that they were introducing a left-handed burger!
in particular, the media often try to make people believe something which is not true. newspapers publish some ludicrous stories every year, although some of them are actually true. its entertaining to try to guess which stories are true and which are fake. in the april fools stories, they often include a clue to the fact that its a joke. for example the name of an expert quoted in the article might be an anagram of april fool.
radio and television programmes have also fooled many people by broadcasting reports which are untrue. one programme announced the invention of an amazing new weight-loss product - water which contained minus calories!
and one of the most famous hoaxes ever was broadcast by the bbc itself in 1957! a very serious news programme called panorama reported on the poor spaghetti harvest in switzerland, and showed pictures of farmers picking spaghetti from trees! hundreds of people were taken in and wrote to the bbc asking how to grow their own spaghetti.
the first of april is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. --mark twain
how do you think april fools day originated? did some joker in biblicaltimes decide to switch the frankincense and the myrrh? was there a historicepidemic of spring fever-tomfoolery in a tiny finnish town in the early1800s? did a new yorker in 1910 find a cockroach in his coffee cup anddecide to recreate the experience for his officemate, thereby sparking afamous april 1 lawsuit? in a convincing testimonial to the saying thattruth is stranger than fiction, well tell you the story, or at leastpresent the most viable theory, of how april fools day came to be.
once upon a time, back in 16th-century france, before computers, people celebrated new years day on march 25, the advent of spring. it was afestive time. they partied steadily until april 1. in 1564, when the calendar reformed and became gregorian, king charles ixproclaimed, perhaps pompously, that new years day should be celebrated on january 1 instead of in the spring. diehard conservatives resisted the change (or perhaps didnt hear about it due to the absence of e-mail) and continued to celebrate new years from march 25 to april 1. during this period of spring festivity, the more flexible french mocked the rigidrevelers by sending them foolish gifts and invitations to non-existent parties. the victim of an april fools day prank was called a poisson davril, or an april fish, because at that time of year, the sun was leaving thezodiacal sign of pisces. april fools day hit its stride (avoiding thebanana peel) in england in the 18th century, and was brought to colonial america by the english, scottish, and french. no fooling.
as it was called years ago, all fools＇day is observed in many countries around the world. the origin of april fool＇s day remains clouded in obscurity. but what is clear is that the tradition of a day devoted to foolery had ancient roots. as we look back in time, many ancient predecessors of april fool＇s day are found.
a french legendary
the most widespread theory about the origin of april fool＇s day links the gregorian calendar reform.
in 1582 france became the first country to switch from the julian to the gregorian calendar. this meant that the beginning of the year was moved from the end of march to january 1. if someone failed to keep up with the change and continued to celebrate the new year between march 25th and april 1st, various jokes would be played on him. this story might explain why april 1st specifically became the date of the modern holiday.
mythological roots
there have been quite a few attempts to provide mythological explanations for the rise of april fool＇s day.
one story dates back to roman mythology, particularly the myth of ceres (the goddess of grain and the harvest) and proserpina. in roman mythology pluto, the god of the dead, abducted proserpina and brought her to live with him in the underworld. proserpina called out to her mother ceres for help, but ceres, who could only hear the echo of her daughter＇s voice, searched in vain for proserpina. the fruitless search of ceres for her daughter was commemmorated during the roman festival of cerealia and believed by some to have been the mythological antecedent of the fool＇s errands popular on april 1st.
british folklore linked april fool＇s day to the town of gotham. according to the legend, it was traditional in the 13th century for any road that the king travelled over to become public property. people in gotham didn＇t want to lose their main road and spread a false story to stop the king. a messenger was sent to gotham after king john learned the people＇s trick. but when the messenger arrived in gotham he found the town was full of lunatics who were engaged in foolish activities such as drowning fish or attempting to cage birds in roofless fences. the king fell for the hoax and declared the town too foolish to warrant punishment. and ever since then, april fool＇s day has supposedly commemmorated their trickery.
anthropological explanations
anthropologists and cultural historians provide their own explanations for the rise of april fool＇s day. according to them, the celebration traces its roots back to festivals marking the springtime.
spring is the time of year when the weather becomes fickle, as if nature is playing tricks on man, and festivals occurring during the spring traditionally mirrored this sense of whimsy and surprise. they often involved temporary inversions of the social order. normal behavior no longer governed during the brief moment of transition as the old world died and the new cycle of seasons was born. practical jokes,trickery, and the turning upside down of status expectations were all allowed.
in addition,the linkage between april foolery and the springtime is seen in another story that traces the origin of the custom back to the abundance of fish to be found in french streams during early april when the young fish had just hatched. these young fish were easy to fool with a hook and lure. therefore, the french called them ＇poisson d＇avril＇ or ＇april fish.＇ soon it became customary to fool people on april 1, as a way of celebrating the abundance of foolish fish.
