AT a gig in Glasgow earlier this week Billy Connolly talked about having a Lulu moment in which he inadvertently referred to the motorway as a freeway and petrol as gas.

Given the comedian is based in New York these days, such linguistic slips are understandable. What's less palatable is the way in which similar idiosyncrasies are creeping into everyday Scottish life. The catalyst for this rant? The humble tumshie.

Perusing the supermarket fruit and vegetable aisle at the weekend, I overheard two children excitedly talking to their mother about their Halloween plans. "Can we carve a pumpkin and go trick or treating?" asked one. I stopped dead in my tracks. Had I without my knowledge been catapulted through a space-time vortex and landed in Walmart in Wichita? Fortunately the stack of teacakes and caramel wafers on a nearby display reassured me I wasn't in Kansas just yet, Toto.

It's time to nip this in the bud. Some things are sacred: Halloween equals turnips and guising. Carving a tumshie lantern has long been a rite of passage for Scottish children. It is a feat requiring donkey-like stubbornness and the strength of an ox. We are talking about a minimum of 400 hours hard graft, chiselling away at the unyielding interior akin to attempting to chop down a tree using a nail file.

This is not a task to be undertaken lightly. Nor is it one truly considered complete until every spoon in your mother's good cutlery drawer has been bent in half and your arm muscles have been sculpted like iron girders. Granted, the tumshie lantern is not without its foibles. It is almost impossible to make the bottom of the hollowed-out inside completely level. This invariably leads to the candle leaning precariously to one side so that as you traipse around the neighbours' doors in your Halloween finery, the pungent smell of burning turnip is left wafting in your wake.

Which brings me to the matter of guising. Traditionally this involved doing a wee turn: performing a song, telling a joke, dancing a jig. Think of it like singing for your supper. In return for entertaining, you would be given some sweets, fruit or a few coins.

These days you open the front door on Halloween night to be greeted with the cry of: "Trick or treat" and a row of outstretched palms, which basically translates as: "Gie us sweets/money now or we'll unravel a nine-pack of toilet roll around your garden." Talk about the entitled generation. The campaign to save the beloved Halloween tumshie starts here.