Pumpkins, Candy, and Gore

What does Halloween have to do with Chicago style? Not a lot, but that hasn’t stopped us from coming up with ten questions designed to challenge your editorial knowledge and stoke your curiosity about this quirky holiday and some of the words associated with it.

Take the quiz to find out what it’s all about.

Subscribers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online may click through to the linked sections of the Manual (cited in some of the answers). (For a 30-day free trial of CMOS Online, click here.)

Note: This quiz is just for fun. Check back next month for our usual CMOS-themed workout.

A Chicago Style Halloween Quiz

1. The word “Halloween” appears in The Chicago Manual of Style as an example of

a named holiday

a movie title

2. The apostrophe in “Hallowe’en,” as the holiday is sometimes spelled, stands for

the letter v

It’s a glottal stop, not an apostrophe

3. The term “jack-o’-lantern” can refer either to the familiar carved pumpkin or to

the spontaneous combustion of methane gas over a marsh

a luminescent fungus

Both

Neither

4. Someone who is all dressed up for a Halloween party might properly be called

costumey

That’s not a word

5. Trick-or-treaters, when they trick-or-treat, say “Trick or treat!”

Okay as is

That last “trick or treat” needs hyphens

6. The idea for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups originated in the 1920s, when two young trick-or-treaters collided in Hershey, Pennsylvania, mixing up their chocolate and peanut butter.

True

False

7. A kiss is sometimes just a kiss, whether it’s affectionate or confectionary, but what would you call the foil-wrapped drop of solid chocolate sold by Hershey’s?

a kiss

a Kiss

8. Pumpkins are a type of

summer squash

winter squash

9. When a pumpkin is standing upright (stem on top), its grooves are oriented

longitudinally

latitudinally

10. A Halloween night arranged according to Chicago style might include ghosts, goblins, ghouls and gargoyles, followed by an all-night gorefest featuring Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.

Sounds perfect

There's a serious problem with that

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Top image: Drawing of a pumpkin by Suesse, modified for post.

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