HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2007

Good morning everybody. Happy Halloween!

Today's special Daily Vitamin includes:

1) An expression with a Halloween-related word (ghost = fantasma).
2) A brief history of Halloween and some informative Internet links with more information.

1. TODAY'S HALLOWEEN EXPRESSION

To give up the ghost

Meaning: a humorous way to say that a machine has stopped working.

Example 1:
My old car finally gave up the ghost.

2. THE HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN
Halloween (also spelled Hallowe'en, especially in UK English) is generally considered to be a typical 'U.S. Holiday.' However, its origins are European.

There is lots of disagreement as to the exact origin of Halloween, but most believe that the modern celebration of Halloween is a VERY distant descendant of the ancient Celtic fire festival called Samhain (pronounced 'sow-in'). It was the biggest and most significant holiday of the Celtic year. The Celts (pronounced 'Kelts') lived more than 2,000 years ago in what is now Great Britain, Ireland, and France. Their new year began on November 1.

Here are some websites that you can visit for more information about the history of Halloween:

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween (in English)

2) http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween (in Spanish)

For more websites, simply type 'Halloween' in the Google Search Engine and you will get millions of options.

Tomorrow and Friday we will not be sending the Daily Vitamin, so the next Daily Vitamin will be Monday, November 5th. Enjoy your long weekend, if you have one. (For more information about the expression long weekend, see the Daily Vitamin from September 26th, 2007.)

Please post any questions about today's Daily Vitamin in the Daily Vitamin Plus! forum section on our website. If you have any questions about how to use the Daily Vitamin Plus! section or would like to receive a Daily Vitamin Plus! manual, please contact us.

Happy Halloween!