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So in today's episode, we're going to talk about April Fool's Day.
So some of you might know this holiday.
Maybe some of you don't.
April Fool's Day is a holiday, if you can call it that, that's celebrated on April 1st every year.
This is the day when people play jokes or pranks on each other.
There are many pranks. hoaxes on this day.
Let me help you out with those words.
A prank is a joke that you play on someone else.
So the other person is the victim of the joke, where you trick them somehow and they don't know what's happening.
A hoax could be similar to that.
It's really just some fake thing, some prank, something like that, where people believe something that isn't true.
So April Fool's Day is the day where people do this every year.
And it is a tradition and it doesn't die.
Every year people do this.
And so, at the time that you'll be listening to this episode, if you're listening to this on time during the first few days after its release, April Fool's Day will be right around the corner.
In English, when we say the phrase right around the corner, we're saying that some event is going to happen very soon.
So for you, April Fool's Day might be right around the corner.
So it's good to know what happens on this day.
And remember that you have the transcript available for this episode.
That's in the description below this episode.
So click on that if you need it.
And if you like this podcast, please give it a five-star rating and write a review and share it with anyone else you know who's learning English.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time!
Okay, so let's talk about April Fool's Day.
First, let's talk a little bit about the origins of this holiday.
Unfortunately, the problem is nobody really knows how this day got started, how this celebration first came into existence.
So nobody knows for sure.
And there are a few different theories that are popular among historians about.
I wanted to mention one of them.
This one seems like it might be true, but of course, I have no idea.
I'm just guessing.
But one of them goes like this.
In the year 1582, the country of France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
So if you're not familiar with these calendars, the Gregorian calendar is the one that most countries use nowadays.
So wherever you are, most likely your country uses the Gregorian calendar.
However, some of you, a small percentage of you, live in countries where they don't use the Gregorian calendar, at least for holidays, for example.
They probably use it in order to conduct business and everything like that.
But in terms of holidays, there will be a different calendar used.
So in 1582, France switched from the Julian calendar, that many countries used to use, to the Gregorian calendar that most countries use today.
So in the Julian calendar, April 1st is the new year.
So April is when the year starts.
And the Gregorian calendar, the one that most of us use, it's January 1st, of course.
So during that time, there was this switch from one calendar to another.
And as you can imagine, that's a pretty strange change in daily life.
Right.
Suddenly the new year is in a completely different month.
Right.
So, of course, that thing can take a little bit of time to catch on.
In English, when we say that something catches on, what we're saying is that something becomes popular and accepted and normal.
For example, if I say that trend never really caught on, what I'm saying is that that trend didn't last very long and it didn't become very popular.
So when you switch the calendar that people use, it might take a little while for that to catch on, because people aren't used to using that new calendar.
And that's a pretty big change when people suddenly tell you that the new year starts in a different month than what you're used to.
That's a big change, of course.
So some people didn't really get the memo and they still celebrated New Year's on April 1st.
In English, when we say that someone gets the memo, this just means that they received the message that something is going on or something happened.
So if someone doesn't get the memo, what we're saying is that someone didn't know, they weren't informed about something that happened.
So some people didn't get the memo and they celebrated the new year on April 1st in that same year and probably in the next year.
Some people probably still celebrated it on April 1st.
And people who actually did get the memo, they thought this was funny.
And so they started calling those other people April Fools.
In English, we can use the word fool as a noun to talk about someone who is like dumb or or someone who is not smart, or something like that.
So people called those other people april fools.
Like these people are fools because they're celebrating the new year in april, right?
So uh, that might be the origin of that phrase, april fools.
And what people did is they played jokes on those people that still celebrated the new year on april 1st and they started that uh habit, that custom of playing pranks on these other people.
So we don't know if that's actually what happened.
Like I mentioned, I don't know.
I'm just guessing.
But I kind of liked that interpretation or that idea of how April Fool's got started.
So I wanted to share that with you.
But in reality, I have no idea.
So it could be that or it could be one of the other stories that some historians believe.
But we do know that April Fool's started to spread in the later centuries, and especially in the 18th century.
It spread throughout Britain and particularly in Scotland.
There was a two-day event where people played pranks on other people.
For example, they sent other people on phony errands.
Let me explain this phrase.
The word phony in English means fake, so if I say That object isn't real, it's a phony.
What I'm saying is it's a fake, right?
Or a person can be called a phony if someone wants to call them fake.
And an errand is something that you have to do outside your house, usually to go buy something or something like that.
So, for example, if I say I need to go run errands, What I'm saying is that I need to go out and do things, take care of responsibilities outside my house.
I need to go to the store.
I need to go to the bank.
I need to do these different things today.
And so during that two-day event in Scotland it was common for people to send other people on phony errands.
So, for example, maybe one guy told another guy that he needed to go and buy certain things and do certain things that in reality were weren't needed.
So this was a phony errand.
It was fake.
And they would cause people to go out and waste their time and maybe their money on things that they didn't need to do.
And another thing that they sometimes did was to put little signs on other people's backs that said kick me.
So if people saw them from behind, they would see this little piece of paper or this sign, or whatever it was, that said kick me.
And so they might kick that person.
And so that wasn't a very nice thing thing to do, of course, but this was something that existed during that time.
I don't think it's that common nowadays I don't think so, but at that time that became a popular prank, and then, of course, the holiday spread and became even more popular throughout the years after that, and nowadays it's just become a holiday that continues on every year.
Every year on April 1st, there are pranks, there are jokes, there are hoaxes.
I don't know if this holiday will ever go away.
So let me talk about some notable jokes that have been played on this holiday throughout our history in the US.
I'll talk about three of them.
These are just random jokes that were played on the American public.
There have been plenty of jokes, but I just wanted to highlight a few of them.
So one of them was that in the year 1992 it was reported that Richard Nixon, who was a president that we had in the past, was going to run for president again.
And people believed this.
They thought that this man was actually going to run for president once again, even though he was the first and only president in our history to actually resign from office.
In English the word resign means that you step down, you quit some position, some official position that you have.
So he was the only president that actually had to resign from office because he was caught in a scandal.
He was caught doing something that he wasn't supposed to be doing.
And he actually resigned as a result of this.
And that happened earlier.
But in 1992, it was reported that he was going to run for president again.
He was going to come back and do it again.
And I think that an actor was hired and they made him look like Richard Nixon.
And then they filmed that and people believed it.
But of course, it was fake.
But that was a joke that was played on the American people.
Another one was that in 1998, Burger King, the famous fast food restaurant, put out a fake advertisement where they said that they had this new sandwich, this new burger called the left-handed Whopper.
I don't know why they chose that, but maybe they We're thinking that people that are left-handed might be interested in that.
But of course, it was fake, obviously.
But many people, many customers actually went to Burger King to try to order that left-handed Whopper.
And of course, that sandwich didn't exist there.
And I'm sure there were many cashiers at Burger King that were probably really confused.
Why are these people coming in and ordering this item that isn't even on the menu?
What's going on?
So that's kind of a funny joke that was played.
I think that it was probably a good trick to get people to go to Burger King, because people were probably interested in that and wanted to go to Burger King.
Maybe some left-handed people.
And when they were there, of course the sandwich didn't exist, but they were already at Burger King, so they probably ordered something else.
So maybe that was a good trick, a good tactic that Burger King used to get more people to go to their restaurants.
Maybe.
And one other joke that I wanted to highlight was that in 1985 Sports Illustrated this is a really popular sports magazine in the US they ran an article about a fake rookie pitcher.
So let me explain those words.
The word rookie means that someone is in their first year in this example, their first year of Major League Baseball right.
So when they're first starting, they're in their first season of the professional baseball league they're called a rookie right.
And then the word pitcher refers to the guy in baseball who throws the ball really fast.
He pitches the ball towards the batter, the guy who is trying to hit the ball.
And the pitcher tries to throw a good pitch so that the batter can't hit the ball well.
So that person who throws the ball really fast is called a pitcher.
So Sports Illustrated ran this fake article about this fake rookie pitcher who did not exist, but they gave him a name and they made him seem real.
And they said that he could throw a pitch at 168 miles per hour.
Most of you are probably confused about that because you don't use miles, you use kilometers.
But let me give you a good reference point.
The fastest pitches that have ever been thrown in baseball are somewhere around 104 mph, 105 maybe.
I think it depends on who you ask.
But imagine that they reported that this rookie pitcher could throw a 168 mile per hour pitch.
That's ridiculous, of course, but I'm sure that some people believed it.
So that was another joke that was played on the American public.
So those were a few examples of April Fool's jokes.
So how about me?
Do I participate in this tradition?
No, I don't do this.
To be honest, I'm not interested in April Fool's Day.
I don't really participate.
Like lying, even if it's just for fun, just to play a joke on someone.
It's not really my thing.
I'm not interested in this.
There was one time when my mom convinced me to play an April Fool's joke on my dad and my sister.
And tell them that my mom got into a car accident.
Not a serious one.
She didn't want to scare them.
But she wanted to make them a little concerned just for a second.
Not for a long time.
And then to tell them that it was just a joke.
So I don't know why she wanted to play that joke on them.
But she got me to play along and we did it.
In English, when we say that someone plays along, what we're saying is that someone participates in something that someone else is doing.
They participate and they don't, let's say, tell the secret or whatever it might be.
So, I played along and my mom played that joke on my dad and my sister.
And actually, my parents, my mom and my dad, they actually got married on April 1st.
Their anniversary is April Fool's Day.
And that's kind of like my dad's humor.
My dad likes to be humorous in many situations.
My dad has a pretty strange sense of humor and I think that he thought it would be funny to get married on April Fool's Day.
I don't know why but my dad thought that that was funny and so they got married on that day.
So that was just something interesting that I thought I should share.
One other thing that I wanted to mention about me is that when it comes to pranks, I'm a little bit gullible.
In English, the adjective gullible is used to describe someone who can easily fall victim to some deception, some lie.
So when it comes to important things, I'm not gullible anymore.
Right.
I always question the source.
I'm always a little bit suspicious of things that I'm told.
So I'm definitely not gullible when it comes to real important things about life.
However, when it comes to these little pranks, these little jokes that people want to play on me, I'm a little bit gullible, especially when it comes to my wife.
So my wife sometimes likes to play little jokes on me for fun.
And I always fall for them.
I always fall victim to these little jokes.
And so thankfully, they're not important things.
They're just little games that my wife plays.
But the idea here is that I'm gullible when it comes to pranks and hoaxes.
So this day is not great for me because on April Fool's Day, I can easily forget what day it is.
And if people tell me something, I'm probably going to believe it, until I remember that it's April Fool's Day.
So this isn't a great day for me.
All right, why don't we stop there for today?
I hope this episode was interesting for you and I hope it was good practice for your listening.
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All right, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
