What time does April Fool’s Day end? Rules and etiquette explained
APRIL Fool’s Day is the best day of the year for pranks and hoaxes.
Here are the unofficial ground rules to ensure that you don’t become the April Fool.
What time does April Fool’s end?
Traditionally April Fool’s jokes and pranks should only be pulled until midday on April 1, although the custom is celebrated differently around the world.
When the clock strikes noon in England you are meant to come clean about your pranks.
Despite this, you would likely get away with an afternoon prank; busy work schedules often mean that people don’t have time for pranks in the morning.
Brits are often delaying their gags for friends, family and kids until the evening, with some even pulled before April 1.
Why does April Fool’s end at 12?
According to tradition, April Fool’s Day pranks are meant to end at 12 noon sharp.
This is a handy rule for parents wanting to minimise fooling around at the dinner table — there are many simple food-centred pranks floating around on social media, after all.
Anyone playing a joke after midday is considered the official April fool.
The origin of this particular rule can be traced back to an 1851 passage written in a British Journal stating that those playing pranks in the afternoon would be told: “April fool’s gone past, you’re the biggest fool at last.”
It is also believed that jokes played after noon bring bad luck to the perpetrator.
What are the April Fool’s Day rules?
While there is no official rulebook for April Fool’s Day, a good prank should neither do no harm nor break any laws.
Fooling your victim is the essence of an April Fool’s prank.
Traditional April Fool’s pranks include gluing a coin to the pavement, putting salt in a sugar bowl and tricking someone into believing their shoelaces are untied.
You can even prank your friends via text with these ideas.
Stories surrounding the origin of April Fool’s Day vary and it’s hard to be sure which is true.
One popular theory dates the tradition back to 1564 when France officially changed its calendar to the modern Gregorian version — moving the celebration of the New Year from the last week of March to January 1.
Those who continued to celebrate the end of the year on April 1 were scoffed at as fools.
The issue with this story of origin is that the adoption of the new calendar was a gradual process which happened over the span of a century.
Plus, there is literary evidence that suggests April Fool’s Day was celebrated even before the switch.
Some believe the first link between April 1 and playing tricks can be found in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales from 1392.
In The Nun’s Priest’s Tale a fox tricks rooster Chauntecleer on “syn March bigan thritty dayes and two.”
While Chaucer probably meant 32 days after March (May 2), many readers seemingly took the line to mean March 32 — or April 1.
A belief held by some is that April Fool’s Day was the result of a desire to celebrate the turning of the seasons at springtime.