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"

词汇点津：

今天的词汇大师，我们请来了《万圣节：美国节日，美国历史》的作家Lesley Pratt Bannatyne。Lesley向我们介绍了关于万圣节的一些事儿。

万圣节起源古老的Roman Catholic Church罗马天主教会，教会定于11月1日为All Saints Day诸圣节，11月2日为All Souls Day万灵节，之后人们将这两个节日合二为一，定于All Saints Day的前一天，名为Hallowmas万圣节。

说到万圣节的流行语“Trick or treat!”就会发现一个奇怪的现象，万圣节早在移民时期的早期就传入了美国，但直到20世纪30年代“Trick or treat!”才开始流行。这是怎么回事呢？原来是因为早期的万圣节只是通过化妆舞会来庆祝，到了后来才有了“Trick or treat!”，“不招待就使坏”要糖果的这个环节。

南瓜灯pumpkin lantern可以说是万圣节不可缺少的重要角色，它也叫Jack-o'—lanterns，这个名字是怎么来的呢？原来，在旧时候的欧洲，是没有南瓜的（这可是美国的特产），人们在各种蔬菜上雕刻鬼脸，来代表万圣节这天游荡在人间的小鬼，而在民间传说中，Jack就是这些鬼魂中的一员，天堂和地府都不肯接收他，于是，他只能手提灯笼在街道上游荡。所以就有了今天的Jack-o'—lanterns。

在美国，万圣节是很受欢迎的节日，不单单是孩子们乐在其中，就连大人们也将平日间的烦恼抛上云端，高高兴兴地欢度万圣了。