Hello everyone! I’m happy you’re here this summer, so to speak, and so am I, blogging away about, of all things, words.

Shocking, I know!

Sadly, this is also my last summer at The Daily as an editor and columnist, as I have graduated, and shall be ambling along to further adventures soon, or so I hope. However, I will linger with you for a bit longer at least, and hope to keep you updated in the future.

In addition to my every-other-week column in the paper, you’ll find an abbreviated, online version of my Will’s Word on the Daily's blog when I don’t appear in print, along with my “word waste” posts of extra wordage that will expand on what I’ll etymologically dissect in my columns in either medium.

Speaking of dissection, today we addressed “barbecue,” which dovetails nicely with the official start of summer.

In addition to the traditional charcoal (or wood or gas-fired) cooking apparatus that we associate with the grilling of meat, “barbecue” has two other, older meanings, including that of an “iron frame for broiling very large joints,” according to our old friend, the Oxford English Dictionary. 

Think hog-roasting. Yes, the entire pig, on a spit, medieval-style. Now, that’s what I call a BBQ! (As long as you have the right sauce, of course).

Another perhaps unexpected definition for “barbecue,” also brought to us courtesy of the OED, involves “an open floor on which coffee beans, etc., may be spread out to dry.”

Apparently, you would “barbecue” coffee beans in order to dry them out. This practice originated in Jamaica, hence the connection to the more conventional BBQ barbecue that, well, barbecues. But even today, drying freshly harvested coffee beans is a critical part of the process.