趣談愚人節(jié)

白曉華 供稿

Consider yourself warned. Monday is April FoolsDay， a day when you are encouraged to pull pranks on classmates， co-workers， casual acquaintances， and even that one guy at the bus stop. Its an odd tradition， but how did it get started？ Whats the history of April FoolsDay， anyway？

Nobody is completely sure about the origin of this， the silliest of holidays. However the urban legend experts at Snopes.com say that most experts give credit to Pope Gregory XIII， who， in the 1500s， gave the world the Gregorian calendar.

In 1562， the Gregorian calendar moved the first day of the year from April 1 to January 1. Words did eventually get around， but some people were a bit slow to hear the news. These folks continued celebrating the new year on April 1， unaware that they were now three months behind the times. These “April fools”were tricked by those in the know. The tradition eventually made its way to the USA.

And its still going strong. Over the past week， Web searches on “April fools day jokes”and “April fools day pranks” have more than doubled， and related lookups for “easy April fools day pranks”and “April fools day jokes for work”also spiked. Bottom line： Keep your guard up， especially if somebody offers you a word search puzzle. Lookups for“impossible April fools day word searches”are up 200%.

But really， there is no way to be certain youll escape trickery. Because on April 1， even corporations are out to trick you. In 1998， Burger King tricked its customers by releasing “the left-handed Whopper”. In 1957， the BBC reported Swiss farmers were harvesting spaghetti from trees. And in 1996， Taco Bell took out ads in major newspapers announcing that the company had purchased the Liberty Bell and renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell.

別說我沒有警告你，星期一就是愚人節(jié)了。在這天你被鼓勵去和你的同學(xué)、同事、熟人甚至公交站遇見的人開玩笑。這真是一個古怪的傳統(tǒng)，但它是如何開始的呢？愚人節(jié)的由來到底是怎么一回事呢？

沒人可以完全肯定這個最愚蠢的節(jié)日的起源。不過，Snopes.com的都市傳說專家稱，大多數(shù)專家將其歸功于在16世紀(jì)頒行格列高利歷（公歷）的教皇格列高利十三世。

1562年，格列高利歷將一年的第一天從4月1日移到1月1日。這一消息后來傳開了，不過有些人比較后知后覺。這些人依然在4月1日慶祝新年，沒有意識到他們已經(jīng)落后了三個月的時間。這些“四月愚人”被那些知情者耍了一把。這一傳統(tǒng)最后傳到了美國。

而現(xiàn)在愚人節(jié)依然很流行。在過去一周里，對“愚人節(jié)笑話”和“愚人節(jié)惡作劇”的網(wǎng)絡(luò)搜索量增加了一倍多，對“簡易的愚人節(jié)惡作劇”和“職場愚人節(jié)笑話”的相關(guān)搜索量也大大增加了。底線是：保持警惕，特別是當(dāng)有人讓你做單詞搜索迷宮題時。對“讓人受不了的愚人節(jié)單詞搜索”詞條的搜索量增加了200%。

實(shí)際上，沒有什么方法可以保證你不被捉弄。因?yàn)樵?月1日，甚至連公司也會和你開玩笑。1998年，漢堡王宣布推出“左撇子巨無霸漢堡”，結(jié)果是和顧客開的玩笑。1957年，英國廣播公司報(bào)道說，瑞士農(nóng)民從樹上收割意大利面。1996年，提供墨西哥美食的餐飲公司“塔可鐘”在各大報(bào)紙上發(fā)布廣告，宣布公司已經(jīng)買下了自由鐘，并把它的名字改成了“塔可自由鐘”。

（白曉華 供稿）