BBQ Abbreviation

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Daniel Vaughn in Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the show.

What can we help you with?

Well, you know, I write a lot about barbecue.

I have a question about the word barbecue as in B-B-Q.

It’s not really a true acronym or abbreviation or even an initialism.

When you see it in print, people just read it as barbecue, not B-B-Q, like barbecue being spelled out.

So what word category does it belong in, and do you have any idea when it started to show up in our language?

Why do you dismiss it as an abbreviation?

Well, I guess my one question is if the word barbecue spelled with a Q came before BBQ being used in language.

Yeah, I think barbecue with a Q-U-E was…

Yeah, it was earlier than the BBQ as a way of saying barbecue.

Right.

It is an abbreviation.

BBQ is a kind of sophisticated form of clipping.

Clipping is when you take parts of a word and you combine them together.

Usually it’s a compound that is forming a single word, like physical education is clipped to form phys ed, or poli sci comes from political science and that sort of thing.

It is unusual that we reduce it down to three letters, and also unusual that the Q successfully replicates the last syllable of the word, whereas the first B doesn’t and the second B does.

So it’s kind of a mixed kind of abbreviation here.

But it is really exactly an abbreviation.

Abbreviation is a broad category of a sort of word that we can reduce in size or length to better suit our tongues or fast speech.

And do you have any idea when BBQ started entering our language rather than just spelling out the word barbecue?

Yeah, it started showing up in the 1930s, probably in the West.

It seems to come from the retail business, from restaurants and signage and that sort of stuff, menus.

It’s not the kind of thing that probably popped up in the everyday writing of normal folk.

So you can imagine the same way that you’re more likely to see drive-through, THRU, at a restaurant or open all night in ITE.

It’s that kind of shorthand that retail enterprises tend to do in order to fit a lot of content into a small amount of space.

Yeah, well, that makes sense.

The first time I’d seen it was showing up in newspaper advertisements.

So it makes sense to shorten it to give yourself a little less room required for the word.

So you’re in Texas writing about barbecue.

That’s like your beat?

Yes, yeah.

I’m the barbecue editor for Texas Monthly Magazine.

So I drive around the state eating barbecue and I write about it.

So this is like being the poet laureate, right?

This is an exalted position, right?

It is an exalted position.

It is also one that comes with a lot of complaints from other folks, just because I’m one opinion, and there are certainly many on the passionate subject.

Oh, I bet.

We know all about the gotcha gang, as William Sapphire used to call them.

But let me ask you, I know there are a lot of different kinds of barbecue around the country.

I know there are disputes about what is grilling and what is actually barbecue.

What is the essential Texas barbecue?

I mean, in your mind, if you’re having a Texas barbecue, what does this look like?

Well, it’s really going to be Central Texas Barbecue, which is the most popular and I think the most identified with Texas.

And that’s going to be meat that is smoked indirectly and smoked rather than grilled.

Smoked indirectly, usually over a long period of time.

And it’s going to be brisket.

Brisket is what’s primarily served all over the state.

It’s what we identify with Texas Barbecue.

And in Central Texas, it’s going to be sliced in front of you.

You’re going to purchase it by the pound rather than as a plate.

And it’s going to be served unadorned on some butcher paper.

So there’s no tomato sauce, no vinegar sauce?

Yeah, I was going to say, what’s on it?

Is there a marinade?

You know, most of the places these days have gone to serve in a sauce alongside the meat, but unlike other states, usually the meat isn’t served with sauce poured over top of it.

And there are even a few places around the state, like Kreitz Market, that doesn’t have sauce served at all.

And as far as the preparation of the meat, there usually isn’t a marinade of any sort.

It’s usually a dry rub.

Usually a base of salt and pepper, and then go with cayenne or maybe add some garlic and paprika from there.

But especially in central Texas, it usually stays pretty simple as a dry rub just applied before the meat goes on the smoker.

Boy, I’ve got to tell you, I know some people in North Carolina that probably get in fistfights over this.

Well, we’re talking about definitions of barbecue.

Yeah, they feel like, you know, our beef brisket down here is just fine.

Just don’t call it barbecue.

Yeah, there you go.

Okay.

Yeah, the only thing they have in common is that there’s meat involved and fire.

That’s right.

Two Texans, three opinions.

Well, Daniel, there you go.

BBQ is a complicated form of clipping, which is a type of abbreviation.

And it’s an odd one, but it fits into the morphology of English.

Okay.

Excellent.

Take care now.

Appreciate your help.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

It’s funny how often language and food intersect, and this is the place that they should intersect.

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