I’m sure that those of you with eyes, and a sense of humour (or sense of the ridiculous), had no trouble unriddling that my column last week was an April fool. The clue was in the initial letters of each paragraph.
My thanks to those who got in touch, even if it was to assure me of my duncery.
Having had a look at April fools attempted by other newspapers and organisations. I was struck by how clever some were. But also by how poor others were.
A good one was by the staff at The Royal Albert Hall, who “discovered” a letter sent to the hall during the war by Winston Churchill. The letter asked that if the hall did indeed have Adolf Hitler’s missing testicle, could it be sent to him for use as propaganda?
I thought that worked. You have to know the cheeky wartime song, of course.
But some papers merely used obviously ludicrous fantasies, or stories relying on tawdry innuendo or smutty puns as their “fool”. That’s not a genuine April fool. There is little wit or ingenuity. No joke, no trick, no “fooling” anyone.
Which leads me to one of my favourite pastimes, musing over the exact meaning of words.
You’ll know what I mean because I’m sure, as a words person, you will have pondered the difference between a bucket and a pail, a couch and a sofa, whether a huge swathe is bigger than a vast tract.
I insist upon good spelling, I’m fascinated by syntax, I get irate about punctuation. But the thing I truly enjoy about language is separating out minuscule shades of meaning and understanding the precise definitions of words.
I’d have liked to have spent my life studying lexical semantics but didn’t stick in enough at school!
So I ask you, with April fools in mind, what’s the difference between a trick, a joke, and fooling someone?
I think a joke is spoken. A trick can also be verbal, but is more likely to have a physical element. A card trick, a saw-a-woman-in-half trick. To hide behind the door and shout “boo” when your daughter enters is playing a trick.
To “fool” someone, on April 1 or any date, you have to take them along with you a little way, pull the wool over their eyes without them realising they are being “taken”, at least for a little while.
Of course, for someone to properly enjoy an April fool, they have to be able to laugh at themselves a little for being taken in.
Finding people like that, that’s the tricky bit!
Word of the week
Asseverate (verb)
Declare or state solemnly or emphatically. EG: “I asseverate that the gentleman who called me a clodpoll after reading my column last week last week was right.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
