So. Maybe it’s just a grammar thing, but is it April Fool’s Day or April Fools’ Day? If it’s Fool’s then that means there is only one fool. But if it’s Fools’ Day then all of us fools have a day. But enough of that stodgy ninja grammar stuff. Let’s talk about the name of the day.
Apparently at one time, after the vernal equinox and the arrival of spring, April First was considered the beginning of the new year. Who knew? I don’t think I’d ever hear that before. Maybe because everything was new? The cold and hoary winter was in the past. Trees and shrubs were blooming, babies were being born. New, I tell you. According to an internet article April Fools’ Day has an uncertain origin. When the calendar was changed to make January 1 the beginning of the new year under the Gregorian Calendar, those who stuck to keeping New Year’s Day as April First were made fun of, sent on a fool’s errand, enticed to do silly things on this pseudo new year day. But there’s not a lot of evidence to support this.
Another theory is that back in Roman times, Constantine allowed the court jesters to rule the empire for a day, and they called for a day of absurdity. But that turned out to be just another April Fools’ Day joke by a professor of history at Boston University.
As there seems to be some doubt as to the origin of april Fools’ Day. Here’s my personal take on the origin of the day. It was a brutal winter. The snow was piled ten feet and people had to get out of the house through the upstairs windows if they went out at all. And then it all started to melt. All that snow had to go somewhere and because it became warm slowly, the snow melted into the ground giving a huge boost to all the local flora. Trees had bumper crops of leaves, bushes blossomed without shame on every inch of their branches: forsythia, azalea, marigolds, snapdragons, lavender, wisteria, dogwoods, the air was perfumed with the fragrance of a million blooms. And one out of every five people were dazed and disoriented from the pollen; headaches, toothaches, sneezing, coughing, runny eyes. And they went nuts! Doing and saying the most foolish of things. That’s where it all began. All because of Spring.
And, if you want to read about the top one hundred April Fools’ Day pranks, click here 🙂