"barbecue pit"

[Wilson Gray]

Charlie's incisive mind pierces to the heart of the matter! ;-)

I knew a guy in the Army who had an encyclopedic knowledge of such
old-fashioned literary clichés. He would throw them into a
conversation, always using himself in the Third Person as the subject,
at appropriate points. That boy was a caution! Cracked me up, every
time!

(Well, maybe you had to have been there. Life in the barracks can be
exceeding boring.)

-Wilson

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 12:02 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "barbecue pit"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Isn't the issue here related to a dialect matter that we have discussed within the past year or two?  In the South and Southwest (principally) the VERB "barbecue" means 'cook large pieces of meat slowly--for several hours--over coals in a pit or in a brick structure above the ground'. In the North (principally) "barbecue" means 'cook hamburgers or wieners for a few minutes on a portable metal charcoal or gas griller', which could be metaphorically called a "pit" in deference to the TRUE meaning of "barbecue."
>
> --Charlie
> _____________________________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:04:03 -0400
>>From: Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>>Subject: "barbecue pit"
>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>>Subject:      "barbecue pit"
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>The second sentence of the appended article reads: "An argument over
>>whether a third guest should stay in the house got so heated that the
>>woman picked up the barbecue pit and hit the man over the head with
>>it, police said." The friend who sent it to me wrote:
>>
>>-----
>> File under, "You keep using that word...I do not think it means what
>>you think it means."  I saw the headline, and I wondered how you could
>>do that.
>>-----
>>
>>So did I. To me, a pit is a basically a hole in the ground, possibly
>>lined with bricks and fitted with assorted useful accessories for
>>cooking, but still a hole.
>>
>>But this term seems to have been lexicalized, e.g.,
>>
>>http://www.msstate.edu/dept/poultry/bbqgrill.pdf [from the Cooperative
>>Extension Service of Mississippi State University]:
>>MULTIPLE-SECTION PORTABLE BARBECUE PIT
>>Barbecuing chickens for large groups is fairly easy when a
>>multiple-section portable barbecue pit is used. It is prefabricated in
>>sections, permitting fast and easy assembly and disassembly. The unit
>>is easily transported and stored. Any number of eight-foot long
>>sections can be interconnected, depending on the number of chickens to
>>be barbecued.
>>
>>And the readers commenting on the website of the local newspaper that
>>originated the story
>>(http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080807/NEWS01/808070337
>>, "Serving Alexandria, Pineville, and Central Louisiana") don't seem
>>to find anything unusual in the usage.
>>
>>================
>>
>>http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080807/D92DOO2O1.html
>>
>>Two arrested after using barbecue pit as a weapon
>>Aug 7, 7:54 PM (ET)
>>
>>ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) - A man and a woman found a new use for a
>>barbecue pit - one that landed them in jail. An argument over whether
>>a third guest should stay in the house got so heated that the woman
>>picked up the barbecue pit and hit the man over the head with it,
>>police said.
>>
>>The man picked up the barbecue pit and returned the favor and hit the
>>woman in the head with it, police reported. The woman then told police
>>that she picked up the barbecue pit and hit the back window of the
>>man's car with it.
>>
>>Police admit that the whole situation was confusing, but after medics
>>treated the man and the woman, they were handcuffed, read their rights
>>and taken to jail.
>>
>>The man was booked on a charge of aggravated battery and the woman was
>>booked with aggravated battery and simple criminal damage to property
>>valued less than $500.
>>
>>==============
>>
>>
>>--
>>Mark Mandel
>>
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>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
 -Sam'l Clemens

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