barbecue => Barbe-A-Queue (etymology)

[bruce bowser]

On Thursday, January 27, 1994 at 1:41:59 PM UTC-5, Gary Sloane wrote in alt.usage.english:
> In article 6...@ncsa.uiuc.edu, rbr...@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rich Brown) writes:
> >In article <1994Jan25.1...@acri.fr> gutz...@acri.fr writes:
> >>Ron O'Dell mentioned that there's no Q in barbecue. He's right.
> >>And even the French use the 'barbecue' spelling. A French fellow claims
> >>that it comes from French, "barbe a queue" meaning "beard to tail."
> >>The idea was that roasted animals were skewered from their beards
> >>to their tails, and this method of cooking was named accordingly.
> >
> >No, that is a folksy etymology. The word "barbecue" comes to us from
> >Spanish "barbacoa," which is itself an adaptation of a Haitian word meaning
> >"a framework of sticks set upon posts" (E. B. Tylor). According to the OED,
> >this is "evidently the same as the babracot (a French spelling) of the
> >Indians of Guyana, mentioned by Im Thurn."
> >
> >The OED states explicitly: "The alleged Fr. barbe a queue 'beard to tail,'
> >is an absurd conjecture suggested merely by the sound of the word."
> [snip]
> >I don't know if the Spanish still use "barbacoa" to mean "a framework of
> >sticks set upon posts," but many Mexican restaurants hereabouts have the
> >item on their menus, where it denotes barbecued meat.
> The OED is fine with me, but if you order barbacoa in Mexico, you get
> goat meat that has been stewed and shredded -- not broiled, baked, roasted
> or grilled.
> A tangent: A friend of mine used to have a rib joint in La Paz that he
> called "Jimmy & Rocio's Texas Style Barbeque" [actually, I don't remember
> how he spelled barbeque anymore, but it was an English, not a Spanish
> version]. Locals would occasionally come in drunk at 2 AM or so and
> demand to be served "un taco de barbacoa", and it was often difficult
> to convince them that there were no tacos and no goat stew to be had.
> Although Jimmy was willing to wrap a barbequed rib in a tortilla, this
> would make it hard to eat.
> ---
> Gary Sloane slo...@adoc.xerox.com
> "Eso es `barbacoa estilo Tejas'"
> ^^^^^^ ^^^^^

Spanish 'churrasco' translates directly into English 'barbecue'.