h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sure the Snopes report was concerning North America only, but their point still stands. There have been pins and razors found in fruit, but they haven't found any incidents where they were found after a child was injured from candy or fruit they got from a stranger while trick-or-treating.

The urban legend does seem to predate that in Houston, TX (just outside Houston, about 60-70 miles from where I live) who killed his son with poisoned Pixie Stix for the insurance payout. He was trying to make it look like the legend. Taking candy from strangers has, I'm sure, always made people leery of just such a thing. These kind of urban legends are built from our fears. Everyone "knows" it happens, even if it doesn't actually happen.

Last that I checked, Formosa Ontario is still in North America - that odd part called Canada that is often mistaken for part of the US.

Sorry, Rev Nick, I didn't know where your "little village" was. On this site, my default assumption geographically is UK or Western Europe.

And rather than go back and read that entire Snopes article again to see if it was just the US, I widened US to N.A.


Speaking of North America... I'm still a bit peeved that Garmin GPS maps for North America don't include Mexico. There is a non-zero chance that I might one day ride my motorcycle through parts of Northern Mexico and maybe even down to Ciudadad de México, D.F. I'd hate to have to buy another full price map set for a weekend trip.

I'm still tempted to get some Over the top makeup in, just for halloween this year

I would have thought that's what you'd have on hand anyway.

"I like to think of it as, "Do you want a trick or a treat?" so the people going door to door should give out either tricks or treats to the people in the houses!"


I always thought of it that way too.

In Puerto Rico and parts of Mexico the children say, " ¿me da mi calaverita?", "Will you give me my little skull?"

Halloween is followed by el dia de los muertos which promininately features skull shaped sugar candies.

How appetizing!

When I was a teen in the 80s there were various thugs in our school who would gleefully describe their acts of vandalism the night before after Halloween had finished. I expect it was mostly either fictional or restricted to their own locale.

As an adult I can't say I've encountered a trick or treater on our doorstep who is over the age of about 8. We're happy to give them a sweetie selection - it would seem churlish to disappoint them seeing as most they're even younger than 8. Usually their parents are lurking in the dark somewhere behind them.
I think this is rather sweet to be honest. They're always dressed up as a witch or something too.

I have to say though I saw an advert on telly last night where the first line was 'Remember when Halloween was just pumpkins...?' (and wearing a black bin liner I would personally ad).

Yeah, I remember that- it was MUCH better.

Now it's just another way of extracting cash from people for pointless costumes by way of USAsian cultural terrorism.
(Golly that sounds a lot more cynical than my intent )

This sounds like the typical Brit complaint about Americans calling it "soccer". We adopted something that you started and then you somehow blame us for it later.

Going around in costume on Halloween collecting food (sometimes with threats of misfortune if unwelcome) goes back to the 16th century in Britain and Ireland. It became a tradition in North America in the 1920s. We probably did add the phrase "trick-or-treat" to the tradition, but we didn't create it.

16th century, you say?

Here are some quotes about ghosts, witches, etc., from the pen of William Shakespeare:

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/quotes/scaryshakespeare.html

And from a modern bard

http://www.chrisjoneswriting.com/witches-abroad.html

Hmmm, yes *some* of it goes back that far. I rather doubt the move from putting a kid in a black bin liner and maybe ducking apples at a push (as it largely was when I was a kid) - to being required to buy all the kids a full Witch/Ghostie/Pumpkin outfit from the local supermarket - i.e. generally commercialising it to hell came from anywhere but Leftpond
Not that anyone is to blame here of course - there's a general movement that way in lots of areas. St Patrick's day is another one where we've gone bananas over it only recently.

Lets try the real kicker. I saw on telly the other day that an increasing number of Brits are apparently 'celebrating' Thanksgiving! Say what?
Maybe they're celebrating the day we got rid of those puritan types

I'm a bit confused about what the soccer thing is - who's blaming you for what? Calling it 'soccer'?

My cousins in Scotland called it soccer when I was a kid as I recall - is that even of american origin?

Interesting!
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/06/the-origin-of-the-word-soccer/

Anyway, I did say I was being over-cynical. Given that half the world speaks English as a first or second language, cultural terrorists R US

Well, not so much blaming us, but rather indignantly "correcting" us when we call it soccer instead of football.

Don't worry, BG, if you're talking to me, it's hardly likely to crop up in the conversation. Soccer is, as far as I'm concerned, perfectly acceptable in Brit. Eng, usage, to differentiate it from Rugby football, which is the other sport that boys indulge in over the winter months.

That link - a couple of posts up - was interesting. I also learned the origin of the word "cricket" although it wasn't as satisfactory as the football story.

We Brits don't use 'soccer' to differentiate the sport from rugby. It's just an informal nickname for football, and a term Americans need more than we do. We simply call the one sport 'football' and the other 'rugby'.

If you want to differentiate between the two rugby codes, then you'd say 'rugby union' or 'rugby league'. They tend not to inhabit the same geographical areas, though.

"Maybe they're celebrating the day we got rid of those puritan types" [orcus]

I think they were trying hard to be gotten rid of. They then got rid of Anne Hutchinson.