Jack-o’-Who? What?
You
may think my choice for the fourth week of Weird
Halloween Words is rather banal and too
commonplace to be weird. Au contraire
my little chickadees (a French tribute to relatives heading to Paris* this
week!).
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| All About Pumpkins |
JACK-O’-LANTERN (jakʹɘ lantʹɘrn): n. a hollow pumpkin cut to look like a
face and usually illuminated inside as by a candle, used as a decoration at
Halloween.
Few
call it a Jack-o’-lantern anymore.
That’s really a shame, because Jack-o’-lantern
is way more creative and interesting than “Halloween pumpkin” – which we have
come to assume is carved.
Using
the name, Jack, probably stepped on someone’s politically correct toes, so the
term fell out of favor. But what is a Jack-o’-lantern, really?
