“APRIL FISH”
What we term an April fool is in France called a “poisson d’Avril,” or April fish. The origin of the term is explained by some as derived from the escape of a prisoner who dived into a moat and thus fooled his jailers. No really satisfactory reason has been found for the term. A favourite joke in dressmaking establishments on April 1 is to send the youngest apprentice to borrow a press for pressing velvet. Some newspapers indulge in a little April first fun, arid one of them printed a photograph of an autobus with wings making a fine landing on the Place de la Concorde. Confestioners’ shops are filled with chocolate fish, and stationers sell illustrated cards bearing a fish, with wording that the receiver may find unflattering but not too unkind.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1939, Page 10
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135“APRIL FISH” Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1939, Page 10
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