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will have beef until I die with people who say they’re having a barbecue when they’re actually just grilling (and thus not barbecuing, which MUST involve smoke)

ok but curious: whole pig, wrapped in banana leaves and buried for many hours in a pit of hot rocks/coals with dirt shoveled on top - what would you call that?

that’s a roasted pig and it is delicious (but not barbecue)

I won't quibble but also words can & do take on new meaning over time en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbacoa

yes I’m fully aware of the history of the term. The word “barbecue” is actually thought to derive from a Taino word used to refer to cooking meat over smoke on wooden racks: www.kqed.org/arts/1397830...

sort of like grilling! (and I'm trying to be playful here because I've often made the same point you're making - but 100 years of folks calling backyard cookouts "barbecues" is a lot of usage history)