aw-right

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 13:54:18 -0400, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>I wonder about the relative chronology of the "barbeque" spelling and
>the "BBQ" initialism.  (And on a related issue, I wouldn't think
>avoidance of homonymy had much to do with the fact that "BBC" is
>never used to denote slow-grilled ribs and pulled pork, given how the
>referents hang out in such different crowds.)

Barry Popik has dated "BBQ" to 1938 and "barbeque" to the 1760s (see the
archives).  OED has a draft entry for "BBQ" with Barry's 1938 cite, and
also an entry for "bar-b-q" (first cite 1926), but nothing yet for
"barbeque" as a spelling variant of "barbecue".


--Ben Zimmer