愚人节April Fool’s Day
1stApril is a day to be careful, or you could easily get tricked by someone. It’s April Fool’s Day, a day when people traditionally like to make a fool of someone else and laugh at them.
4月1号这一天要小心,否则你很容易中别人的计。这一天是愚人节,人们喜欢愚弄和嘲笑其他人。
There are lots of versions of the origin of the day, but one explanation is connected with the change in the calendar in the 16thcentury, which means that 1stApril was no longer the beginning of the year. Those who still celebrated the New Year on 1stApril were called fools.
这一天的来源有很多版本,但是一种解释是与16世纪日历的变化有关,意味着4月1号不再是一年的开始。那些仍旧在4月1号庆祝新年的人被称作傻子。
So what kind of pranks do people paly on April Fool’s Day? Actually, there are lots of simple tricks that you can play on your friends. For example, you could change the time on someone’s alarm clock so that they’re late for work or glue a coin to the floor and see how many people try to pick it up.
那么在愚人节这天人们会搞什么样的恶作剧呢?实际上,有很多你可以用在朋友身上的简单把戏。比如,你可以更改某人的闹钟时间使他们迟到,或者粘一枚硬币到地板上看有多少人会试图捡起来。
In addition, there’s 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. It’s entertaining to try to guess which stories are true and which are fake. In the April Fool’s stories, they often include a clue to the fact that it’s a joke. For example, the name of an “expert” quoted in the article might be an anagram of “April Fool”
另外,有个传统的大公司试图愚弄很多人。比如,一家汉堡饭店曾声称他们会推出一款左撇汉堡。特别地,媒体经常试图让人们相信一些不是真的事。报纸每年也会发布一些可笑的故事,尽管他们中有的确实是真的。试图猜测哪个故事是真哪个是假是件好玩的事。这些与人故事中通常包含一些线索说明事实是个玩笑。比如,文章中引用的'专家'一词可能是“愚人”的变位词。