INTRO: Listen up guys and ghouls! This week VOA's Wordmasters Avi Arditti and Rosanne Skirble talk about some of the language of Halloween — which just happens to be today.

MUSIC: "HALLOWEEN" MOVIE THEME

AA: It's a dark and stormy night. There's a knock at the door. Some kids are standing there, dressed in costumes. They're holding out bags. And they're yelling:

RS: "Trick or treat!" or "Happy Halloween!" What do these children want? Candy, of course!

AA: "Trick or treat" means give us a treat or we'll do something nasty to your house.

RS: Yes, it's a form of extortion, but it's usually meant in good spirits ...

SFX — SPOOKY SOUNDS

RS: ... although Halloween is supposed to be scary, with spooky little monsters trick-or-treating alongside ghosts, goblins and witches.

AA: Lesley Pratt Bannatyne is author of a book called "Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History."

RS: She says that while Americans have transformed Halloween, its roots are ancient.

TAPE: CUT 1 — BANNATYNE

"You can go back 2,000 years to Celtic tribes in northern Europe celebrating the end of summer in a festival called Samhain, which was essentially their New Year's Eve. And this festival they invited the ancestral dead to, so there were ghosts about, and they tried to tell the future by asking the spirits what would happen to them."

AA: So how did the name Halloween come about? Lesley Pratt Bannatyne says it had to do with the involvement of the Roman Catholic Church.

TAPE: CUT 2 — BANNATYNE

"It was (called) Samhain and people were celebrating it, pagans were celebrating it, and the church came and said, well OK fine, we're going to take these customs of remembering the dead and we're going to sanction a church holiday on the same date. So November 1st is All Saints Day, November 2nd will become 500 years later All Souls Day. These two days were called Hallowmas. All Saints was called All Hallows, from 'all holy,' and All Hallows Eve was the night before All Saints, or October 31st, [which became] Halloween."

RS: Lesley Pratt Bannatyne says early immigrants brought Halloween to America, but it wasn't until the late 1930's that the words "trick or treat" began appearing in popular culture.

TAPE: CUT 3 — ARDITTI/BANNATYNE/SKIRBLE

AA: "What did they say before 'trick or treat'?"

BANNATYNE: "They probably didn't say anything, because they weren't exactly doing that. They would put on a costume and go to a big party or they would go out and move outhouses around or take farmers' fences down so their cows would wander in the streets, or put rocking chairs in the trees."

RS: "Let's talk pumpkins. Pumpkins are a really big part of Halloween, but we don't just call them pumpkins, we call them Jack-o'— lanterns. How did we get that term?"

BANNATYNE: "That's a good one. First of all in old Halloween in Europe, there weren't pumpkins, because pumpkins are American. There were turnips and other vegetables and they did carve them on Halloween or All Hallows and they did carve faces in them, we think, to represent the ghosts and demons that might have been out and about. 'Jack' is a folk legend of an actual character called Jack, someone who is denied entrance to heaven and hell and has to wander the Earth forever with just a lump of coal from hell to guide his way. So it's 'Jack of the Lantern' or 'Jack who carries this lantern' that we get this Jack-o'-lantern from."

AA: Lesley Pratt Bannatyne says the popularity of Halloween — not just with children but increasingly with adults — shows that Americans want some fantasy in their lives.

RS: And also a sense of community:

TAPE: CUT 4 — BANNATYNE/ARDITTI

"It's the one time of year where we still open our doors to each other. It's a valuable thing."

ARDITTI: "In your neighborhood do you see kids from different cultures, different countries, learning this"

BANNATYNE: "Some of them don't know say 'trick or treat.' They know enough about it to know they should stand there, they should dress up, they should smile and they should put their bags out when the door opens? But I don't hear trick or treat from everybody anymore. 'Happy Halloween' is what I hear almost more than trick or treat."

RS: Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, author of "Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History."

AA: And we wish you a boo-tiful halloween.

RS: Scary or otherwise, we'd like to hear from you. Our e-mail address is word@voa.gov, or write to us at VOA Wordmaster, Washington DC 20547 USA.

AA: With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti. Now let's party!

MUSIC: "Monster Mash"

詞匯點津：

今天的詞匯大師，我們請來了《萬圣節：美國節日，美國歷史》的作家Lesley Pratt Bannatyne。Lesley向我們介紹了關于萬圣節的一些事兒。

萬圣節起源古老的Roman Catholic Church羅馬天主教會，教會定于11月1日為All Saints Day諸圣節，11月2日為All Souls Day萬靈節，之后人們將這兩個節日合二為一，定于All Saints Day的前一天，名為Hallowmas萬圣節。

說到萬圣節的流行語“Trick or treat!”就會發現一個奇怪的現象，萬圣節早在移民時期的早期就傳入了美國，但直到20世紀30年代“Trick or treat!”才開始流行。這是怎么回事呢？原來是因為早期的萬圣節只是通過化妝舞會來慶祝，到了后來才有了“Trick or treat!”，“不招待就使壞”要糖果的這個環節。

南瓜燈pumpkin lantern可以說是萬圣節不可缺少的重要角色，它也叫Jack-o'—lanterns，這個名字是怎么來的呢？原來，在舊時候的歐洲，是沒有南瓜的（這可是美國的特產），人們在各種蔬菜上雕刻鬼臉，來代表萬圣節這天游蕩在人間的小鬼，而在民間傳說中，Jack就是這些鬼魂中的一員，天堂和地府都不肯接收他，于是，他只能手提燈籠在街道上游蕩。所以就有了今天的Jack-o'—lanterns。

在美國，萬圣節是很受歡迎的節日，不單單是孩子們樂在其中，就連大人們也將平日間的煩惱拋上云端，高高興興地歡度萬圣了。