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 （英國）衛(wèi)報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，偽裝人格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 美國有線電視新聞網(wǎng)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 (荷蘭榆樹病)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 (圓周率)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 簡訊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: 褲襪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 譯文:十大愚人節(jié)玩笑為慶祝愚人節(jié)，下面是我們歷史排名前十的愚人節(jié)玩笑。請注意：它們?nèi)颊鎸?，真的?. 圣賽瑞弗艾返回1977年那個遙不可及的歲月，愚人節(jié)惡作劇在大不列顛的報紙中遠未成氣候。但當(dāng)天衛(wèi)報專門用七頁的特版介紹了一個名為“圣賽瑞弗艾（San Serriffe）”的偏遠島嶼。坐落在印度洋這座島嶼，據(jù)描述由上卡伊塞和下卡伊塞兩大島嶼構(gòu)成，首都是波多尼，而統(tǒng)治者是皮卡將軍。當(dāng)然，這都是精心捏造的笑話。其中大多數(shù)名詞作為雙關(guān)語指代印刷工術(shù)語。然而非常多人上了當(dāng)，或許歸咎于在頁面聯(lián)手惡搞的許多正規(guī)廣告商，包括吉尼斯黑啤酒和柯達。衛(wèi)報辦公室的交換機隨之冒出大量輕信讀者的來電，想要了解更多關(guān)于這個子虛烏有島嶼的信息。這個圣賽瑞弗艾的玩笑之所以聞名于世不僅因為不列顛媒體爆出對愚人節(jié)傻事的偏愛還因為它作為最可信的謊言竟然由衛(wèi)報印制而出卻絕非拼寫錯誤的結(jié)果。2. 意大利面樹如果象衛(wèi)報這樣一個值得信賴的報紙來搞笑的主意在1977年對于人們也算平常，那么二十年前BBC，依托全景節(jié)目主持人理查德汀伯比可考的個人面孔，告訴人們謊話必然有的那類思想看起來正如共產(chǎn)主義的瘋狂言論。而這也可能解釋了為什么千百人曾致信詢問他們怎樣才能種植意大利面樹，當(dāng)全景節(jié)目播放了一小段瑞士人于1957年從樹上收獲縷縷意大利面的鏡頭。在他們的辯解中，值得銘記在心的是: a)在1957年，大多數(shù)不列顛廚房對意大利面相對陌生；b)人們難以置信的愚蠢。3. 紐約城愚人節(jié)大游行當(dāng)一個新聞發(fā)布被散播，宣告在2000年紐約城的第十五次年度愚人節(jié)大游行，甚至毫無可言的表述：其一，它曾允諾一次漂流，而期間亞特蘭大勇士投手約翰洛克將當(dāng)眾發(fā)表種族歧視言論；其二，它來自臭名昭著的惡作劇者喬伊斯柯格斯；其三，斯柯格斯早做出這個并不存在的大游行的新聞發(fā)布，已有十五年；其四，它使用“愚人節(jié)”為標(biāo)題，足以勸阻有線電視新聞網(wǎng)派出一個攝制組，以便支付這次活動。4. 鴿子組合 Google有一個娛樂性的歷史。如果不是過于似是而非四月一日惡作劇之中，最好的是他們的2 0 02年的爆料G o ogle的搜尋結(jié)果是由大量受過訓(xùn)練的鴿子組成的電池組所創(chuàng)造。這樣，他們能夠達到優(yōu)于傳統(tǒng)搜索引擎的速度，而這種效果尤其需要依靠猛禽、育雛的母雞或緩慢移動的水禽。5.荷蘭榆樹病1973年出自英國BBC廣播公司電臺的惡作劇中，專業(yè)博士“裁縫”就荷蘭榆樹病蔓延到紅發(fā)人的危險發(fā)出警告。博士“裁縫”如同Spike Milligan(斯派克米利根)一般言語可疑，大概已經(jīng)從這一點讓這場游戲敗露。6.清掃互聯(lián)網(wǎng)永遠受歡迎的是1997年造成最重打擊的一個轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)的電子郵件。它警告說，4月1日過后，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)將會關(guān)閉，以便讓機器人爬上去清理掉廢棄站點。這當(dāng)然是錯誤的。周二的每一秒，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)其實上有一位叫做埃莉諾的女士來清理它。7. 圓周率 據(jù)稱，（1998年愚人節(jié)）阿拉巴馬州議會已投票表決，將把圓周率值PI值（ 3.1415926 ）改為圣經(jīng)值3.0。 ，這種聲稱其實是一個笑話，來自新墨西哥人科學(xué)與推理組織的通訊上刊登的一篇文章。然而，很多人相信它的這一事實，可能是一個很糟的對阿拉巴馬州的反映，相比真實的情形。8. 帕特里克摩爾 1976年，英國備受尊敬的天文學(xué)家和木琴演奏家帕特里克摩爾Patrick Moore通過BBC電臺宣布，當(dāng)天會出現(xiàn)一個百年一遇的天文現(xiàn)象（冥王星將從木星后面經(jīng)過），將使地球的引力減弱，由此將讓人們產(chǎn)生一種飄浮感。再次，BBC利用一位貴族人物來戲弄他們的聽眾。他們說的一切都確實不假？9. “瞬變彩色電視機 1962年，當(dāng)時的瑞典只有一個黑白的電視頻道。愚人節(jié)那天，電視臺技通告，觀眾們只需將一只尼龍長統(tǒng)襪撐開蓋在電視屏幕上，就能使黑白畫面立刻變成彩色。變色真不見效，但電視確實看起來相當(dāng)酷。10. ?；鶐炷钒厣?1974年，滑稽的Porky Bickar在阿拉斯加的休眠火山Mt. Edgecumbe埃基庫姆柏山山頂上縱火燃燒了幾百個舊輪胎。隨著滾滾黑煙升上天空，山下驚恐的居民誤認為火山即將爆發(fā)了。而辛普森一家The Simpsons（movie）中的尼爾森會說，“哈哈?！盇s 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