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Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Sam.

And I'm Neil. Oh, trick-or-treat.

For listeners at home, Neil is dressed up as a ghost. He's wearing a white bedsheet over his head

with two holes, cussed out for his eyes, which must mean...

It's Halloween. The start of autumn, when the days get shorter and leaves fall from the trees,

marks Halloween, a festival which is celebrated all over the world at this time of year.

In Britain, people carve scary faces into pumpkins and children go trick-or-treating,

dressing up in fancy dress costumes and visiting people's homes, shouting,

trick-or-treat, for sweets and candy. Halloween comes from an ancient festival called

Saoen, which celebrated the changing of the seasons, a time when it was believed the dead

could make contact with the living, which is why children dress up as ghosts,

witches and other scary monsters. But recently, online shops have removed

several Halloween costumes, including creepy clown masks and real-life serial killer costumes.

After parents complained, they were too frightening. In this programme, we'll be discussing whether

Halloween is no longer harmless fun, and, as usual, we'll be learning some new vocabulary as well.

But before that, and since you're all dressed up as a ghost, Neil, my question is this,

why did people traditionally dress up in costumes on Halloween? Was it A, to scare their

neighbours as a joke? B, to use up their old clothes, or C, to hide from ghosts?

I think it was to hide from ghosts. Okay, Neil, we'll find out the answer later in the programme.

In recent years, Halloween has become more influenced by American horror movies like Friday the 13th

or Scream. Some parents now think Halloween costumes are too scary and over the top, a phrase

...