If you ask about April 1 in Spain, you won’t get a special response. However, in many European countries and in North America, there is a tradition to spend the day making jokes with friends. It's called April Fool's Day, the equivalent of December 28 in Spain. This tradition began in France. Until 1582 the new year was celebrated for eight days beginning on March 25 and ending on April 1. When King Charles IX introduced the Gregorian calendar, the new year started on January 1. Since the means of communication back then were lacking, people did not hear about the change, or simply decided to ignore the new date. As a result, these “ignorant” people were teased [1], and so began the tradition of tease people on this day.
One year, the BBC showed a joke documentary on April Fool’s Day about the spaghetti harvest [2] in Switzerland. After seeing the farmers picking [3] spaghetti from the trees, many people telephoned to ask how they could grow [4] their own spaghetti. The BBC replied that they should place a sprig [5] of spaghetti in a can of tomato sauce and hope for the best!
There are various expressions using the word fool. Two popular ones that mean more or less the same thing are to play the fool and to fool around. This means to habitually make jokes and try to make people laugh even when sometimes it isn’t appropriate. A popular idiomatic expression is a fool and his money are soon parted. This means that a person who isn’t careful with money spends it quickly, often on unnecessary things. If you make a fool of yourself it usually means that you have said or done something embarrassing in public. Don’t worry. It happens to all of us!
[1] Se tomaron el pelo, [2] cosecha, [3] coger, [4] cultivar, [5] ramita
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