Trick-or-Treat... a Question

Post Reply New Topic

I have a genuine question here. As tomorrow is Halloween, at least here in my time zone, I am curious. Is "trick-or-treat" a question or a request? Am I required to give children either a trick or a treat, or are they required to give one of either to me? Or is it a threat, saying "I will play a trick on you if you do not give me a treat"?

This question is genuine in that I really don't think I have understood the meaning of the phrase, but I'd also like to know if I can ask children for candy. Not because I want candy or want to take it from children (I hand out candy, and not crummy old hard candy), but because I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if I asked. And if I have the option of "trick", then I really want to learn a silly trick to do.

Silly question. Any thoughts?

I understand that as a threat, "treat us or be tricked!".

I heard the joke in The Simpsons. They weren't given candy so Bart said it was time to play tricks on the neighbor. It's "Trick" or "Treat."


I don't think it means anything. I think it's a tradition kids say when you answer the door. But if you don't want to hand out candy, you leave your lights off and kids don't come to your door. Maybe that phrase comes from a long time ago and maybe people used to play tricks if you didn't give them anything and now it's not that way anymore but the phrase was left and now we just use it for fun.

Same as we dress up and stuff for fun and the holiday came from Ireland. Back in the old days, people thought goblins came out, so they would carve pumpkins and put them on their door step to scare them away. That was how it all started. Now we just dress up now for fun and hand out candy to the kids who go door to door but not all countries do that but yet still do Halloween.

I have always taken it as give us a treat or we will play a trick on you.

Trick or treat is a threat, I think. At least some people have experienced having their mailbox filled with different icky substances or even had it blown up, or had their gardens trashed when not giving treats to kids. Not all kids who are denied do, though.

When I was a kid, the poem went:

"Trick or treat
Smell my feet
Give me something good to eat"

Kids were prone to being somewhat mischievous, so the "treats" were basically a payoff for not having them scribbling foul language with a bar of soap on your front windows or unwinding toilet paper through your front garden and over the trees. Or, for houses where the homeowners were particularly obnoxious, leaving a flaming paper bag full of horse poop on their front steps....

Of course, back then I remember that the homesteaders gave out regular sized candy bars, none of these little individually-wrapped, bite-sized things that seem to be all I can find in the store today, and almost every house/apartment played along with it all. The signs were: jack-o-lantern lit on the porch, they were "in". No jack-o-lantern, pass the house by for the next one with the pumpkin.

We only had about a dozen kids come by tonight, sadly. I live in a condominium complex, and we expected that there'd have been more children through in costume. After 8:30pm, when no kids had come up the steps for quite a while, we gave up and went out for a drive. Found a neighborhood full of kids in costumes, and where four houses on each side of the road had turned the street into ... well, there was artificial fog everywhere, strobe lights pointed up at the houses, where flapping bats were hanging off the eaves, etc., and when we stopped to admire the decorations several of the adults in the neighborhood came staggering out of their garages, dressed and in makeup as zombies, doing the shuffle and everything, straight for our car. They were really pretty good, too!

We laughed, gave them the "way to go" sign, and pulled away before they got to the car, but were wondering later, what does one do with zombies on the car windshield? Turn on the wiper and washer?

They are asking you if you want to be treated or tricked. I allways say treat and take something from their offering bags.

I think that Halloween is a very stupid holiday. Kids go from door to door, begging for candy.

CockneyRebel, that's one part of Halloween. Here are others: Costume parties, horror movie marathons, horror effects, great looking pumpkins, and the lore behind the celebration, which is really cool.

In Denmark we have a similar tradition around Shrovetide, where the kids dress up and go from door to door and sing a song that goes like this:

Shrovetide is my name
Buns do I want
If I get no buns
Then I'll make tricks

Buns up, buns down
Buns in my belly
If I get no buns
Then I'll make tricks.

It's not very often that buns are handed out though, rather candy or money.

So I don't see why we need to have Halloween or trick or treating also (it's beginning to be celebrated here too, within the last few years).

it is designed as a threat, though most people will simply walk away if you decline to give them sweets. However some imbeciles insist on throwing eggs and other messy substances for them... a hosepipe...

When I was a kid I had a few people respond to "trick or treat!" with "trick!"

I responded by doing something, for example break a pre-placed blood capsule in my mouth, act out my character a little.

Hey Cockney Rebel,

I am from Australia of Irish decent. and I find Halloween an odd custom too.

As far as I am concerned it's an American thing and they can keep it.

To me it's just another commercial exercise, isn't there enough of those already.

Funnily enough I don't actually want another excuse for my kids to eat waaaaaaaaay to much rubbish, or to go knocking on strangers doors at night.