Rabbi’s Rant: Barbecuing?!

With the watermelon and ketchup/mustard/relish displays popping up in the supermarket, it must be summer. And that means time to barbecue some meat, right? Nope.

Because as many of you know, barbecue is a noun. Let us proclaim it from atop Mount Sinai.  

Wrong for so many reasons

Wrong for so many reasons. Photo by Curtis Gregory Perry

If you’re looking for a verb to communicate cooking burgers and dogs, etc., we suggest ‘grilling.’  Or even ‘cooking out’ or having a cook out.

As I reformed barbecuer, I can see both sides of this divide. And what I see is the folly of using barbecue as a verb.

If you insist on saying you’re having a barbecue, we’ll look the other way on this incorrect usage. But please, oh please, just don’t say you’re barbecuing anything. 

As for the sign to the right, there’s so many things wrong here. Obviously, there’s the verb thing. But equally important–what kind of park doesn’t allow cook outs? Why do parks exist if not to serve as venues for cooking and consuming meat? Finally, wouldn’t it read better if ‘allowed’ came before ‘in park?’

On a mostly-unrelated tangent, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. But the photo below rocked me to the core. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do some serious soul-searching.

What?

Now *that* is not kosher. Photo by Rahel Sharon