So on All Hallows Eve
Pommie parents long ago sent their children out to collect yummy rewards from the neighbours?

Because dressing up like a slutty super-heroine has everything to do Samhain rite?

Fucking n00b!
Feel free to come back when you have a little more research than wiki you 1st uni student.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Fri 26 Oct 2012, 10:08, 3 replies)

i wish you were trolling
you seem to be incredibly stupid.
(quintsy, Fri 26 Oct 2012, 10:47, closed)

Wow - a little OTT I can't help feeling
And yes, the basic trick-or-treat principle has been around for a long time, in various forms (night of misrule etc). And the Jack-o-lantern predates the carved pumpkin too. So it's a very old and perfectly respectable tradition.

If there's anything I do dislike about the modern version it's just that the basic dress-up-as-something-scary concept seems to be turning into a dress-up-as-whatever-you-like, which seems a shame - we have the rest of the year for that, surely.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Fri 26 Oct 2012, 11:00, closed)

thanks flatfrog, i couldn't be bothered to argue the toss with him
i suspect the dressing up as anything thing comes from needing an excuse to, fancy dress parties are pretty gay, but most people like having the excuse once a year
(quintsy, Fri 26 Oct 2012, 11:05, closed)

I looked into this recently...
...The dressing up element comes from guising which was a Scottish tradition of going round the local houses dressed up and being rewarded (or bribed to go away) with money and treats. The tricking element comes from another old tradition of mischief/misrule night. Both of these were exported to America with immigrant families and distilled into one "trick or treat" night that got affixed to halloween, the day before All Saints Day.

The Good Ole US of A might have exported "trick or treating" and pumpkins (instead of turnips which are a nightmare to carve!) back over the ocean, but the notion of halloween predates their country by several centuries (according to the OED at least!).
( e.m.m.y. foxtrot uniform charlie kilo india tango, Fri 26 Oct 2012, 14:07, closed)

I was going to say this
I am sure there are b3tans older than me here but we used to go guising back in the early 70's in Aberdeen. We'd dress up, ask "penny for the guy" (but never had 'a Guy' with us, infact I didn't know who Guy was) We'de be very dissapointed if we were given sweets instead of money and throw wet toilet paper at the windows of people who didn't answer their doors - we were proto-trick or treaters. Prometh-i-treaters as it were.
( spitsticker is not working on, Fri 26 Oct 2012, 21:49, closed)