April Fool's Day

April Fool’s Day, or All Fool’s Day is a day which brings feelings of dread for some people, and delight for other’s.  April Fool’s Day, observed on 1^st April each year, is traditionally a day upon which people play pranks or practical jokes on each other.  The pranks are always played in good nature, although some of the victims may not necessarily see the funny side.

In some countries the jokes are only supposed to be played until noon.  In other countries the pranks continue for the whole day. 

The origin of April Fool’s Day is uncertain.  A popular theory is that when France changed the start of its calendar year from April 1^st to January 1^st, those that were resistant to the change and tried to stubbornly stay with the old calendar system had practical jokes played on them.  A common prank to play was to stick paper fish to their backs.  The victims of this prank were called Poisson d’Avril, which means April Fish.  The reason for pinning paper fish to people was that during early April young fish would hatch in streams which were easily fooled and caught.  The pinning of paper fish to people was to suggest that they were as foolish as the young fish.  It is still traditional in France to give chocolate fish to each other on April Fool’s Day.

On April Fool’s Day some newspapers sometimes run one or more stories which are intended to be April Fool’s jokes.  In 1977 The Guardian newspaper published in Great Britain created a seven page supplement about a fictional island nation called San Serriffe.  The name was derived from the font type Sans Serif.  The Guardian has continued to use the fictitious island for several hoaxes since 1977. 

In 2010 The Sun newspaper, also published in Great Britain ran an article about their new ‘scratch and sniff’ paper.  They provided a sample of the new paper, which of course was just normal newspaper.  Many readers were fooled and tried to sniff the paper in order to pick up the scent.

There are numerous internet websites dedicated to April Fool’s Day hoaxes.  Love it or loathe it, it seems April Fool’s Day is a tradition which is set to continue for many years to come.