Xiaohua: Hello and welcome to Roundtable’s Word of the Week. This week we’re talking about words and phrases related with Halloween.
John: That’s right. There’re quite a few different monsters, typical costumes that you might see people wearing, so we’re just gonna go through a few of those today.
So first off I want to start with the ever popular vampire. Also sometimes people dress as Count Dracula. And vampire and Count Dracula are actually 2 similar, but separate things.
Xiaohua: 说到万圣节或者万圣节的装扮，很多人就会想到吸血鬼的装扮。而说到吸血鬼，大家又会想到Count Dracula，德拉库拉伯爵，但是这两者其实是有点不同的。
John: You might just look at it this way: Count Dracula is one type of vampire, one person who is also a vampire. Interestingly enough, the myth of Count Dracula as a vampire is based upon a real person from Romania, known as Vlad Tepes. And actually he ended up getting the nickname Vlad the Impaler for the cruelty in which he would treat his enemies.
Xiaohua: 德拉库拉可以说是一种吸血鬼。而德拉库拉在小说中的原型是来自一个真实的人物，叫做Vlad the Impaler，穿刺王弗拉德。
John: Yeah. And the word vampire began in eastern Europe around the Balkans and the Caucasus Mountains, and its original usage has nothing to do with sucking blood, or taking a creature’s life essence or something like that. But rather it had to do with someone coming back from the dead as a spirit and just really bugging the people in the village where they were born.
Xiaohua: So something like a ghost.
John: Something like that. Exactly. And now we’re moving on to a werewolf, also known sometimes as a lycanthrope. So basically it’s just the ability for someone to turn from human into a wolf or dog-like creature.
Xiaohua: 狼人，又叫lycanthrope，就是可以随意或是在某些场合从人变成狼的生物。
John: And then of course there is the mummy, perhaps the easiest costume to do in all history of time. All you got to do is to take some toilet paper and wrap it around your body as many times as possible. But a mummy is basically just a human or an animal whose skins and organs had been preserved due to exposure to chemicals, cold, low humidity or anything like that.
Xiaohua: 木乃伊我们都知道，是来自古埃及的时候，人们对于死尸进行的一种步骤，用香油或香料涂到尸体上用来防腐。
John: And then of course there is the zombie, and I think anyone familiar or a fan of the Walking Dead will know what zombie currently means right now. Basically someone died or something died, and then it becomes reanimated, undead, and it wants to eat brains, living flesh or something like that. But actually the term zombie comes from Afro-Caribbean belief system Vodou or Vodom, wherein a shaman, a witch doctor, could actually cause someone to think they’re dead, and then bring them back to quote-on-quote life.
Xiaohua: Very interesting. 现在万圣节最流行的装束应该是装成zombie，僵尸了。我们通常认为僵尸是由死人转化的生物，活人如果被它咬到也会变成僵尸，但其实在海地，zombie是巫师可以用幻觉或药物控制人，让人昏睡过去，让他们以为自己已经死去。
John: And then of course there is Frankenstein. So funnily enough, at least in English, Frankenstein, the story by Mary Shelley, the monster is never actually named. The monster has no name. It’s just called the monster. However, in popular culture, now we refer to the monster in that story as Frankenstein. So Frankenstein is a very popular character, or at least used to be, not so much anymore. But we used to see him in TV shows, or comedy shows, like satires, and things like that. But again, it has been a very popular costume during Halloween.
Xiaohua: Frankenstein，科学怪人，是指的玛丽雪莱的那本科幻小说。本来是科学家的名字叫Frankenstein，但是逐渐大家就把他制造出的这个怪人叫做Frankenstein了。
John: Yes, exactly. And last but not least, we have the western conception of the witch, or sometimes known as the hag. And basically it’s just an older woman, usually with a warp on their nose, and a big crooked nose, and a big hat with a point on top. And they’re supposed to be able to do black magic and things like that. Usually they’re associated with a black cat as well.
Xiaohua: 鹰钩鼻子、戴着高帽子、手拿魔杖，经常有扫帚和黑猫相伴，这就是我们常见的女巫，the witch. And that’s an easier costume as well.
John: Yeah, it’s an easier costume, but also interestingly enough, the western conception of witch is very, very different from the eastern conception. The word witch is tied up in our religious history you might say what you saw during especially the medieval times but also even later on, is that women would be accused of being a witch. And what that meant was that they were having parties with Satan, the devil, and they were sleeping with the devil and using black magic and things like that in order to control other people. More than likely this was all just superstition, and people were persecuting women for being young usually, and different.
Xiaohua: Exactly. 在中世纪的时候欧洲因为女巫的罪名迫害了不少女性。And that’s all we have for this week’s Word of the Week.