All Fools’ Day — Welcome to April, PC

All+Fools+Day+--+Welcome+to+April%2C+PC

The Blue Stocking staffers covered PC campus with posters this year in celebration of April Fools’ Day. While not an actual holiday, April 1st serves as a day full of merriment and is often riddled with jokes and tricks. On this day only, most people are allotted a free pass to exert their inner goofiness and act completely foolish. This imitation holiday found its origins in a book that many of you have probably been forced to read in your time here at PC.

It’s in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that we find the roots of this famed day. In the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, Chaucer writes the phrase “Syn March began thirty days and two” which was incorrectly translated to mean the thirty-second day of March rather than it’s intended meaning of thirty-two days after March. This put the day in question to be the 32nd of March, or April 1st. The story is about a vain rooster who is tricked when a sly fox flatters him. Luckily the rooster is able to escape death, and he comes to realize that he was foolish to trust a flatterer. Ever since, there have been countless literary and media hoaxes conducted on this day. Acts of foolishness are generally accepted and are executed around the world.

The 1st of April has long been a day of tomfoolery, mischief, nonsense and antics so smile PC, and embrace your inner fool 🙂