A Short History of Halloween in America

While Halloween has become a commercial phenomenon spreading around the world, there is no celebration quite like Halloween in the United States. The holiday wasn’t always about accumulating as much candy as is physically possible to carry! Halloween actually has a long, colorful history in the Americas.

The tradition of “Trick-Or-Treat” finds its origins in All Souls’ Day in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. The ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain also featured bonfires and rituals involving the dead. People would dress up and wear masks to ward away unwanted spirits.

Halloween in the Americas

Halloween traditions in colonial America were a result of a mixture of pagan traditions both from native peoples, European settlers, and African slaves. In colonial times, people believed that on Halloween, ghosts and spirits would return to the earth for an evening. People would dress up to avoid being recognized by past relatives and dead acquaintances. In order to keep ghosts away from their houses, colonists would bowls of food outside of their doors. In the colonial South, Native American traditions combined with those of settlers in “play parties” that included ghost stories, fortune telling, dancing and singing.

The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid 19th century brought many Celtic Halloween traditions to the Americas. This included bringing the tradition of going door to door asking for money or food. Women also used the heighten spiritual environment to perform divinations and find out the identity of their future husbands.

The 1900’s in America saw the decline of superstition and a new version of the holiday more focused on its commercial potential. Traditions became far more family and community oriented with the advent of the modern suburban nuclear family and the boom in population after WWII. While sweets on one’s doorstep had previously been used to deter unwanted ghost guests, parents now gave candy to trick or treaters to prevent pranks from neighborhood youngsters.

Halloween Today

While the Halloween we celebrate today still carries aspects of its ancient roots, the holiday has accumulated a host of new traditions.

Communities across America now organize trick-or-treat on Halloween night for young children to go door to door in costumes asking for candy. Some communities even organize parades, costume parties, and ghost tours. During the Halloween season, it is also customary to visit a pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin to carve into a jack-o-lantern to put on your doorstep. Many pumpkin patches also feature corn mazes or other haunted attractions for fall visitors. Many Americans may also find watching Halloween movies together to be an important part of their Halloween celebration. Movies like Disney’s Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown, or Casper the Friendly Ghost have become classics and have shaped the way the Millennial generation has grown up with the tradition of Halloween.

Discussion Questions

• Has Halloween come to your country? If so, what kind of traditions or celebrations are popular?
• Are there any spiritual festivals in the history of your country where people thought that ghosts came down to earth?
• What is your favorite aspect of Halloween? Favorite tradition?
• What kinds of superstitions and ghost stories exist in your culture?

If you would like to learn more about the history of Halloween, go to the following links:

http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween

http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/history-halloween-america/

Commonly Confused Prefixes

Most of us are familiar with negative prefixes. For example, unhappy is the opposite of happy and unhealthy is the opposite of healthy. But not all prefixes change a word to the opposite meaning.

Negative prefixes can be quite confusing, especially when the prefix changes the meaning in an unpredictable way.

Here are some examples!

Discontent

• Discontent:  unhappy
• “Uncontent” is not a word, but many Americans use this word in conversation.

Disqualify and unqualified

• Disqualify: to prohibit or exclude; to bar or ban
• Unqualified: without qualifications; untrained or unskilled

Nondiscriminatory and indiscriminate

• Nondiscriminatory: equal; unbiased; fair
• Indiscriminate: random in selection;  uncritical or unselective

Nonspecific and unspecific

• Nonspecific: general; generic
• Unspecific: undefined; unclear

These two words can be used almost interchangeably.

Valuable and Invaluable

These two words are often confused.  “Invaluable” is not a negative term, but actually means that something is so valuable that it doesn’t have a price.

• Valuable: treasured; prized; respected
• Invaluable: priceless

Try a few of the exercises below to practice!

1. The player was ___ from the game after jumping out of bounds.
2. The company believes in ___ hiring practices to create an inclusive environment.
3. Your friendship has been ___ to me.
4. The jewels are ___.
5. The candidate was ___ for the job due to his lack of retail experience.
6. They are very ___ in their selection of participants.
7. The clothing line is ___ to gender.
8. He was very ___ about how he wanted us to remodel the new home.

Scary Stories–write your own!

Scary Story Writing Exercises:

Try completing these famous starters to scary stories!

1. It was a dark and stormy night when…
2. The mad scientist was in his laboratory trying to create a new monster called…
3. Something in the closet was making a strange noise. When I opened the closet door, I saw…
4. As I entered the haunted house, the door slammed shut behind me and…
5. The phone started to ring. When I picked up the phone, a strange voice said “Look outside your window.” I saw…

————————————————————————–

Suggested Vocabulary:

Blood-curdling scream                                              creak (creaking door, window, etc.)

Spooky                                                                        whispers

Haunted                                                                      shadows

Abandoned                                                                 dripping blood

Scratching                                                                   cackling (evil laughter)

Howling                                                                      creepy (very scary or unsettling)

Here are some examples of scary stories that we’ve found. Some of these stories end with a cliffhanger (you don’t know what happens). Most of these are creepy–you’ve been warned!

The Man in the Backseat

Example:
As told by Emily Dunbar:

One night a woman went out for drinks with her girlfriends. She left the bar fairly late at night, got in her car and onto the deserted highway. After a few minutes she noticed a lone pair of headlights in her rear-view mirror, approaching at a pace just slightly quicker than hers. As the car pulled up behind her she glanced and saw the turn signal on — the car was going to pass — when suddenly it swerved back behind her, pulled up dangerously close to her tailgate and the brights flashed.

Now she was getting nervous. The lights dimmed for a moment and then the brights came back on and the car behind her surged forward. The frightened woman struggled to keep her eyes on the road and fought the urge to look at the car behind her. Finally, her exit approached but the car continued to follow, flashing the brights periodically.

Through every stoplight and turn, it followed her until she pulled into her driveway. She figured her only hope was to make a mad dash into the house and call the police. As she flew from the car, so did the driver of the car behind her — and he screamed, “Lock the door and call the police! Call 911!”

When the police arrived the horrible truth was finally revealed to the woman. The man in the car had been trying to save her. As he pulled up behind her and his headlights illuminated her car, he saw the silhouette of a man with a butcher knife rising up from the back seat to stab her, so he flashed his brights and the figure crouched back down.

The moral of the story: Always check the back seat!

Vocabulary:

Deserted:  abandoned; not crowded; empty

Swerve: to turn suddenly or sharply

Surge: to move forward in a quick movement; to flow or rush

Mad dash: to run wildly; to “make a run for it” (run as fast as you can)

Silhouette: a shadow

Brights: high beam lights on a car

Humans Can Lick Too!

Also known as The Licked Hand, The Dog’s Lick, People Can Lick, Too, Not Only Dogs Can Lick, etc.
Example #1
As told by Liz Langridge (Australia):

A young girl named Lisa was often left alone at home because her parents worked late, so they bought her a dog to protect her and keep her company. One night Lisa was awakened by a constant dripping sound. She got up and went to the kitchen to turn off the tap properly. As she was getting back into the bed she stuck her hand under the bed and the dog licked it reassuringly.

The dripping sound continued, so she went to the bathroom and turned off the tap properly in there, too. She went back to her bedroom and again stuck her hand under the bed, and again the dog licked it. But the dripping continued, so she went outside and turned off the taps out there. She came back to bed, stuck her hand under it, and the dog licked it again.

Still the dripping continued, drip, drip, drip. This time she listened and located the source of the dripping — it was coming from her cupboard. She opened the cupboard door, and there was her dog hanging upside down with its neck cut, and written on the window on the inside of the cupboard door was, “HUMANS CAN LICK TOO!!!”

Vocabulary:

Reassuringly: with comfort, encouragement, or calm

The Dead Boyfriend

A woman and her boyfriend were on their way home from somewhere (not important) one night, and suddenly his car ran out of gas. It was about one in the morning and they were completely alone in the middle of the nowhere.

The guy stepped out of the car, saying comfortingly to his girlfriend, “Don’t worry, I’ll be right back. I’m just going to go out for some help. Lock the doors, though.”

She locked the doors and sat restlessly, waiting for her boyfriend to come back. Suddenly, she saw a shadow fall across her lap. She looked up to see… not her boyfriend, but a strange, crazed looking man. He was swinging something in his right hand.

He stuck his face close to the window and slowly pulled up his right hand. In it was her boyfriend’s decapitated head, twisted horribly in pain and shock. She shut her eyes in horror and tried to make the image go away. When she opened her eyes, the man was still there, grinning psychotically. He slowly lifted his left hand, and he was holding her boyfriend’s keys… to the car.

Vocabulary:

Restlessly: with anxiety, nervousness,  or fidgeting

Decapitated: head cut off (beheaded)

Psychotic(ally): crazy; insane

Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?

Example
As told by Jon Little:

I heard about a girl who went back to her dorm room late one night to get her books before heading to her boyfriend’s room for the night. She entered but did not turn on the light, knowing that her roommate was sleeping. She stumbled around the room in the dark for several minutes, gathering books, clothes, toothbrush, etc. before finally leaving.

The next day, she came back to her room to find it surrounded by police. They asked if she lived there and she said yes. They took her into her room, and there, written in blood on the wall, were the words, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?” Her roommate was being murdered while she was getting her things.

Vocabulary:

Stumble: to trip; to walk in a clumsy way

Blended Words

What is a blended word?

In English, blended words (also called “portmanteaus”) are words created by combining two or more words together.

Here are some examples:

Smog: smoke and fog

Bash: bat and mash

Clash: clap and crash

Smash: smack and mash

Slosh: slop and slush

Glimmer: gleam and shimmer

Flare: fire and glare

Sitcom: situational comedy

“aholic”

Workaholic

Chocoholic

Holiday-related:

Chrismukkuh: when Christmas and Hanukkah overlap

Turducken: a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey (served around the holidays, usually as a joke or for serious meat lovers)

Other popular blends:

Guesstimate: guess and estimate

Televangelist: an evangelist who appears on TV

Infomercial: information commercial

Can you guess these other blended words?

1. breakfast + lunch= ______________
2. friend + enemy= ______________
3. Spanish + English= ______________
4. stay + vacation=______________
5. web + seminar=______________

Can you guess the slang by region?

Slang and accents are very different depending on what region you go to in the U.S. Most people think of a Southern accent when they are talking about American accents, but people in the Midwest, on the West coast, and in New England speak slightly differently than people from the Philly area. Here are some examples of multiple words across the U.S. that have similar meanings.

Words for soda:

• soda (multiple regions)
• pop (the South and Midwest)
• coke (multiple regions)

Words for sandwich (on a long roll):

• sub (New York/New Jersey)
• hoagie (Philly)
• grinder (New England)

Yiddish Words (typically used in New York and New Jersey):

• schlep: to carry
• schmuck: an idiot
• schmutz: dirt
• putz: similar to schmuck (“putz around” means to move around in an idle way or waste time)
• oy vey: an expression of annoyance (similar to “ugh” or “argh”)
• Jeet yet?: did you eat yet?

Words for collective “you:”

• y’all (the South)
• youse or “youse guys” (Philly)

Meanings of the same word could vary by where you live. One example of this is the use of “the city:”

• The City means New York City if you live in Connecticut or New Jersey.
• The City means Philly if you live in South Jersey

Words for water fountain:

• bubbler (Massachusetts)

Words for cool (also can substitute “very”–as in very good):

• hella (California)
• wicked (Massachusetts)

Replace the bold word with the correct phrase (some phrases might not need to be changed):

Philly:

You all coming to the game tonight? I’m bringing some sandwiches on a long roll and some soda. That joint also sells water ice at the stadium.

New York:

That idiot is going to carry his suitcases up the stairs instead of using the elevator. He should quit wasting time. Argh!

Did you eat yet? There’s a new pizza place down the street we could check out.

New Jersey:

We’re leaving Manhattan tomorrow night and going to the beach.

Massachusetts:

You’re running a half marathon? That’s cool! Are there any water fountains on the running trail?