"April Fools' Day (sometimes called April Fool's Day or All Fools' Day) is celebrated every year on the first day of April as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other. The jokes and their victims are known as "April fools". Hoax stories may be reported by the press and other media on this day and explained on subsequent days. Popular since the 19th century, the day is not a national holiday in any country, but it is well known in India, Canada, Europe, Australia, Brazil and the United States".1Americans play small tricks on friends and strangers alike on the first of April. One common trick on April Fool's Day, is pointing down to a friend's shoe and saying, "Your shoelace is untied." Teachers in the nineteenth century used to say to pupils, "Look! A flock of geese!" and point up. School children might tell a classmate that school has been canceled. Whatever the trick, if the innocent victim falls for the joke the prankster yells: "April Fool! ".
April 's Fool Day pranks:
"As well as people playing pranks on one another on April Fools' Day, elaborate practical jokes have appeared on radio and TV stations, newspapers, web sites, and have been performed by large corporations as well".1 For example, in the '90s, Burger King published an advert in the magazine USA Today offering new ‘Left-handed Whoppers’ for the 32 million left-handed Americans! Thousands of customers ordered the new burger in the restaurants!
April's Fool vocabulary:
Hoax:
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes. 2
Prank:
A practical joke. It is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion or discomfort. A person who performs a practical joke is called a "practical joker"3
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