Top Ten April Fool jokes.doc

Top Ten April Fools Day JokesTo mark April Fools Day, heres our top ten April Fools jokes of all time. Please note: theyre all real. Really. 1. San SerriffeBack in the hazy, distant days of 1977, the annual japery of April Fools Day was far from a fixture in the UKs newspapers. But then The Guardian ran a seven-page feature on the remote island nation of San Serriffe, in the Indian Ocean complete with descriptions of its two main islands, Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse, its capital Bodoni, and its ruler, General Pica. Of course, it was all an elaborate joke, with most of the names being punning references to typographers terminology. But huge numbers of people fell for it aided perhaps by the fact that the paper roped in many legitimate advertisers, including Guinness and Kodak, to play along with the gag. The Guardians office switchboard was flooded with phonecalls from gullible people wanting more information on the fictitious islands. The San Serriffe joke is notable not only for sparking the British presss fondness for April 1 tomfoolery, but also for being the most sustained untruth ever printed by the Guardian that wasnt the result of a spelling error. Words:Japery: joke, prank, gag, hoaxfixture:thing that is firmly established and appears unlikely to leave a placefeature:terminology: technical terms of a particular subjectfall for:rope in:legitimate: genuine, seriousgullible:tomfoolery: foolish or senseless behaviorThe Guardian （英国）卫报2. Spaghetti TreesIf the idea of a reputable newspaper like the The Guardian pulling their legs was too much for people in 1977, twenty years earlier the thought that the BBC in the authoritative persona of Panorama presenter Richard Dimbleby would tell people fibs must have seemed like communist crazy talk. Which probably explains why, when Panorama ran a short segment about how Swiss people harvested spaghetti from trees in 1957, hundreds of people wrote back asking how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. In their defence, its worth bearing in mind that a) spaghetti was comparatively alien to most British kitchens in 1957, and b) people are incredibly stupid.Words:pull ones legs:authoritative:persona: character of a person as presened to others or as others percieve it 面具人格，伪装人格presenter: host/hostess of a programfib: untrue statement esp. about sth unimportantsegment: alien:3. New York City April Fools Day ParadeWhen a press release was sent around in 2000 announcing the 15th annual New York City April Fools Day Parade, not even the facts that a) it promised a float on which Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker would “spew racial epithets at the crowd”, b) that it came from notorious prankster Joey Skaggs, c) that Skaggs had been issuing press-releases about the non-existent parade for a decade and a half, and d) it had the words April Fool in the title, were enough to dissuade CNN from sending a film crew to cover it. Words:pitcher: a baseball player who throws the ball to the batterspew: vomitepithet: statementnotorious: well-known for some bad quality, deed, etcprankster: person who plays pranksdissuade: stop sb by advice or persuasiona film crew: CNN:Cable News Network 美国有线电视新闻网4. Pigeon RankGoogle has a history of entertaining if not remotely plausible April 1st hoaxes: the best of these was their 2002 revelation that Googles search results were created by vast batteries of trained pigeons. This enabled them to attain speeds superior to traditional search engines, which typically rely on birds of prey, brooding hens or slow-moving waterfowl. Words:plausible: (of a person) skilled in producing convincing arguments, esp. in order to deceivehoax: revelation: that which is revealed, esp. sth surprisingvast batteries of: series of cages in which pigeons are keptwaterfowl: 水禽5. Dutch Elm Disease (荷兰榆树病)A 1973 prank by BBC Radio, in which academic Dr. Clothier warned of the dangers of Dutch Elm Disease spreading to redheaded people. The fact that Dr. Clothier sounded suspiciously like Spike Milligan should probably have given the game away on this one. Words:redheaded: (of a person,esp. a female) with red hairgive the game away: carelessly reveal a secretSpike Milligan (16 April 1918 27 February 2002),: an Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet and playwright6. Cleaning The InternetA perennial favourite, which hit hardest in 1997, is a forwarded email warning that the internet will be shut down over April 1 so that robots can crawl along it cleaning out dead sites. This is of course false: the internet actually has a nice lady called Eleanor who comes in to dust it down every second Tuesday. Words:perennial: lasting for a long time; constantly occuringa forwarded email： 7. Pi (圆周率)The claim that the Alabama State Legislature has voted to change the value of pi (3.1415926) to the more Biblical 3.0 was in fact a joke, from the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter. The fact that so many people believed it is probably a worse reflection on Alabama than it is on them, however. Words:newsletter: informal printed report giving information and regulary sent to members if a club or society 简讯8. Patrick MooreIn 1976, the hugely respected astronomer and xylophonist Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio that a rare planetary alignment would reduce Earths gravity temporarily, causing people to feel a floating sensation. Once again, the BBC uses a patrician authority figure to take the piss out of its audience. Is anything they say actually true? Words:xylophonist: 木琴演奏家alignment: arrangement in a straight linepartrician: nobletake the piss out of:9. Colour televisionIn 1962, Swedish black-and-white-only television told its viewers that they could instantly convert their televisions to colour by pulling a pair of nylon tights over the set. This doesnt actually work, but it does look pretty cool. Words:convert: tights: 裤袜10. Mount EdgecumbeIn 1974, the amusingly named Porky Bickar set fire to several hundred old tires at the summit of Mt. Edgecumbe in Alaska. As thick black plumes of smoke rose into the sky, terrified residents below believed that the mountain was about to erupt. As Nelson from The Simpsons would say, “Ha ha.”Words:plume: thing that rises into the air in the shape of a feather 译文:十大愚人节玩笑为庆祝愚人节，下面是我们历史排名前十的愚人节玩笑。请注意：它们全都真实，真的！1. 圣赛瑞弗艾返回1977年那个遥不可及的岁月，愚人节恶作剧在大不列颠的报纸中远未成气候。但当天卫报专门用七页的特版介绍了一个名为“圣赛瑞弗艾（San Serriffe）”的偏远岛屿。坐落在印度洋这座岛屿，据描述由上卡伊塞和下卡伊塞两大岛屿构成，首都是波多尼，而统治者是皮卡将军。当然，这都是精心捏造的笑话。其中大多数名词作为双关语指代印刷工术语。然而非常多人上了当，或许归咎于在页面联手恶搞的许多正规广告商，包括吉尼斯黑啤酒和柯达。卫报办公室的交换机随之冒出大量轻信读者的来电，想要了解更多关于这个子虚乌有岛屿的信息。这个圣赛瑞弗艾的玩笑之所以闻名于世不仅因为不列颠媒体爆出对愚人节傻事的偏爱还因为它作为最可信的谎言竟然由卫报印制而出却绝非拼写错误的结果。2. 意大利面树如果象卫报这样一个值得信赖的报纸来搞笑的主意在1977年对于人们也算平常，那么二十年前BBC，依托全景节目主持人理查德汀伯比可考的个人面孔，告诉人们谎话必然有的那类思想看起来正如共产主义的疯狂言论。而这也可能解释了为什么千百人曾致信询问他们怎样才能种植意大利面树，当全景节目播放了一小段瑞士人于1957年从树上收获缕缕意大利面的镜头。在他们的辩解中，值得铭记在心的是: a)在1957年，大多数不列颠厨房对意大利面相对陌生；b)人们难以置信的愚蠢。3. 纽约城愚人节大游行当一个新闻发布被散播，宣告在2000年纽约城的第十五次年度愚人节大游行，甚至毫无可言的表述：其一，它曾允诺一次漂流，而期间亚特兰大勇士投手约翰洛克将当众发表种族歧视言论；其二，它来自臭名昭著的恶作剧者乔伊斯柯格斯；其三，斯柯格斯早做出这个并不存在的大游行的新闻发布，已有十五年；其四，它使用“愚人节”为标题，足以劝阻有线电视新闻网派出一个摄制组，以便支付这次活动。4. 鸽子组合 Google有一个娱乐性的历史。如果不是过于似是而非四月一日恶作剧之中，最好的是他们的2 0 02年的爆料G o ogle的搜寻结果是由大量受过训练的鸽子组成的电池组所创造。这样，他们能够达到优于传统搜索引擎的速度，而这种效果尤其需要依靠猛禽、育雏的母鸡或缓慢移动的水禽。5.荷兰榆树病1973年出自英国BBC广播公司电台的恶作剧中，专业博士“裁缝”就荷兰榆树病蔓延到红发人的危险发出警告。博士“裁缝”如同Spike Milligan(斯派克米利根)一般言语可疑，大概已经从这一点让这场游戏败露。6.清扫互联网永远受欢迎的是1997年造成最重打击的一个转发的电子邮件。它警告说，4月1日过后，互联网将会关闭，以便让机器人爬上去清理掉废弃站点。这当然是错误的。周二的每一秒，互联网其实上有一位叫做埃莉诺的女士来清理它。7. 圆周率 据称，（1998年愚人节）阿拉巴马州议会已投票表决，将把圆周率值PI值（ 3.1415926 ）改为圣经值3.0。 ，这种声称其实是一个笑话，来自新墨西哥人科学与推理组织的通讯上刊登的一篇文章。然而，很多人相信它的这一事实，可能是一个很糟的对阿拉巴马州的反映，相比真实的情形。8. 帕特里克摩尔 1976年，英国备受尊敬的天文学家和木琴演奏家帕特里克摩尔Patrick Moore通过BBC电台宣布，当天会出现一个百年一遇的天文现象（冥王星将从木星后面经过），将使地球的引力减弱，由此将让人们产生一种飘浮感。再次，BBC利用一位贵族人物来戏弄他们的听众。他们说的一切都确实不假？9. “瞬变彩色电视机 1962年，当时的瑞典只有一个黑白的电视频道。愚人节那天，电视台技通告，观众们只需将一只尼龙长统袜撑开盖在电视屏幕上，就能使黑白画面立刻变成彩色。变色真不见效，但电视确实看起来相当酷。10. 埃基库姆柏山 1974年，滑稽的Porky Bickar在阿拉斯加的休眠火山Mt. Edgecumbe埃基库姆柏山山顶上纵火燃烧了几百个旧轮胎。随着滚滚黑烟升上天空，山下惊恐的居民误认为火山即将爆发了。而辛普森一家The Simpsons（movie）中的尼尔森会说，“哈哈。”As it was called years ago, All Fools Day is observed in many countries around the world. The origin of April Fools Day remains clouded in obscurity. But what is clear is that the tradition of a day devoted to foolery had ancient roots. As we look back in time, many ancient predecessors of April Fools Day are found. The most widespread theory about the origin of April Fools Day links the Gregorian calendar reform. In 1582 France became the first country to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. This meant that the beginning of the year was moved from the end