もれなく

[Riccardo91]

Dear Japanese forum members,

how are you? I hope everything's fine!

I have a quick question about the word もれなく in the following sentence said by kids on Halloween:
お菓子くれないと悪戯もれなくしちゃうぜ

Does this mean they will play tricks on every person who's not giving candy to them? Or is it more generic, like "we will do a lot of tricks"?

Thank you so much!

 

[gengo]

お菓子くれないと悪戯もれなくしちゃうぜ

Does this mean they will play tricks on every person who's not giving candy to them? Or is it more generic, like "we will do a lot of tricks"?

The literal meaning is something like "I'll play every trick in the book on you."

At least that's how I read it.

 

[SoLaTiDoberman]

もれなく
＝漏れなく、漏れることなく、例外なく
＝without any exceptions

応募したらもれなくもらえる景品
＝応募したら、応募したヒト全員に必ずもらえる景品

お菓子くれないと悪戯もれなくしちゃうぜ
＝お菓子をくれないなら、いたずらをお菓子をくれなかったヒト全員に必ずしますからね。例外はありませんよ。お菓子をくれないのなら、いたずらを免れることはありませんからね。だからお菓子を必ずくださいね！
=お菓子をくれないと、必ず悪戯をしちゃうぜ。

they will play tricks on every person who's not giving candy to them　

If you don't give the Haloween candies to us, we'll play tricks on all of you for sure. Keep in mind that there will be no exceptions!

We will play tricks on all of those who do not give us candies. No exceptions!


Another interpretation:
お菓子くれないと悪戯もれなくしちゃうぜ
=お菓子くれないとあらゆる種類の悪戯を例外なくしちゃうぜ
＝お菓子くれないと悪戯を全部しちゃうぜ
＝お菓子くれないと悪戯を考えうる種類の中の全部しちゃうぜ
I think this iterpretation is much less likely somehow, although it might be possible technically.
I wonder why, and this is my assumption:
"Trick or treat" is a kind of rhetorical sentence. They have no intention to actually play tricks on adults. They only request to give them "treat." Therefore, they would not think about the concrete plans how to trick adluts.
Therefore, もれなく is less likely to modify "every kind of tricks."
Another reason comes from grammatical consideration:
もれなくもらえる is a kind of set phrase; the usage always midifies people or "participants", like "all the people/participants" "every people/participants".
もれなく usually doesn't modify the variety of the object 景品, present, or tricks, like "every tricks," "all the tricks that exist on this planet" or something.

However, this sentence itself is a quite colloquial sentence, and might not be a "standard" Japanese sentence. So it's a confusing one. We need to ask the speaker themselves in order to make it clear.

 

[Flaminius]

もれなく is all, not a lot or very much. It is important to note, however, that this word belongs to rather formal vocabulary. When this word is used at all in ordinary conversations, it must be used in such a way that it comes with a jocular air. One source of もれなく in ordinary Japanese is commercial adverts such as: いま××を買うと、もれなくおまけがついてきます。

If I am to use もれなく to translate "trick or treat", I would say:
お菓子をくれない人には、もれなくいたずらをします。

 

[KLAUSED]

Isn't this a line from a song? I don't think kids actually say this on Halloween, unless this is a very popular song. It's probably intentional that the word seems out of place and the word order rather unidiomatic. I like how comical it sounds 😄

 

[Riccardo91]

Yes, it's from that song, but the lyrics are written as if it were direct speech from the kids asking for candy.

Thank you for your opinions. I see it's a bit more vague than I thought, but you gave me lots of elements to work on.
Thank you again!