Wednesday is April 1, when people in many countries worldwide celebrate the custom of “April Fool’s Day.” On this day, they play pranks on each other, the pranksters gleefully calling those hapless enough to fall for the joke an “April Fool.”
Nobody really knows for certain when, where or why the custom started. We have more certainty over the origins of the word “fool” itself, although some details remain unclear.
The word, which refers to a silly, stupid, or ignorant person, is thought to originate in the early 13th century, deriving from Old French fol, meaning a madman or insane person. The French word, in turn, comes from the Latin follis, meaning a leather bag or a bellows and, by extension later on, an empty-headed person.
Photo: AP
照片：美聯社
Fool also referred to a rogue or a sinful, wicked or lecherous person — around 1300, a “fool woman” meant a prostitute, for example — and also a court jester, a person whose purpose was to entertain the king and court, whether because they were pretending to be buffoonish or whether they actually were like that.
One theory is that the idea of the court jester “fool” derives from folles — the plural form of follis (bellows) — referring to the puffed cheeks of a buffoon.
It is unclear which sense came first, that of the idiot or the jester.
(Paul Cooper, Taipei Times)
下週三是四月一日，許多國家的人在這天都有過「愚人節」的慣例，互相捉弄，惡作劇的人樂不可支地把那些不幸被騙倒的人稱作「April Fool」（四月的愚人）。
沒有人能確知愚人節這習俗到底是在何時、何地或為何開始的，但我們對「fool」（傻瓜）一字的由來比較能夠掌握多，儘管有些細節仍不甚明瞭。
「fool」這個字，現今指的是傻氣、愚笨或無知的人，通常被認為是源自十三世紀初期的古法語字「fol」，意指瘋子或精神失常的人。而這個字又是源於拉丁文「follis」，意為皮製的袋子或風箱，後來引伸為腦袋空空的人。
「fool」亦指惡棍或有罪、惡毒或淫蕩的人──例如在西元一三○○年左右，「fool woman」指的是妓女，亦指弄臣，也就是在宮廷中負責娛樂國王和朝臣的人，無論這些弄臣是故意裝瘋賣傻，還是本來就如小丑般滑稽。
有一說則是認為，「fool」字的「弄臣」之意，是源於「folles」──即「follis」（風箱的拉丁文複數形）──指的是小丑鼓脹的臉頰。
「fool」一字是先有「傻子」之意，還是先有「弄臣」之意，我們並不清楚。
（台北時報林俐凱譯）
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