“barbeque”, the food item, means smoke as far as i’m concerned. if there’s no smoke involved, it’s pulled pork or beef or chicken or whatever meat.
If invited to a barbecue i’m assuming grilled foods, smoke or not.
Agree!
When the vets put on a BBQ their pit masters are working at 2 in the morning to make the noon lunch call. Other than that, “proper” BBQ is location, location, location.
Your parents never bought you “ground sirlion” at the Western Sizzlin when you were a kid? 
That’s what I meant. There are some great BBQ joints that use gas-fired pits. But they still toss on some wood for the smoke. They just aren’t completely wood or charcoal-fired.
One of my other general rules for finding good joints is to ask what ethnicity the pit master is and whether or not the place has plates. The correct answers are “not White” and “no.” Unless it’s a church outing. Then the first answer changes to “not European or Japanese,” and the second answer can be “Dixie.” 
OK, I was getting worried for a second. In my slow slide into middle age, I’ve become soft and begrudgingly accept gas-fired barbecue. But my favorite barbecue joints tend to be fully wood-fired, or wood-and-charcoal. There’s one in Memphis that is fully charcoal-fired (Cozy Corner) that I love and almost want to categorize in its own category, as 100% charcoal barbecue tastes quite different than one that has wood. It doesn’t have that woody smoked flavor but, rather, a fat-in-the-fire flavor, as I assume Cozy Corner lets the drippings fall into the fire, because there is a distinct flavor to them. The gas-fired joints are good, but nothing has ever blown me away.
It just occured to me that the internet probably has a small but non zero number of BBQ trolls. People who cruise through various forums proclaiming what is and isn’t proper BBQ and getting off on others getting all bent out of shape about this whole BBQ thing 
It seems that most of us here have a fairly inclusive definition of barbecue, but if it’s too expansive, it ceases to mean anything. I mean, seriously, at some point you have to draw a line. If I order a grilled steak, and get something with grill seasoning on it, roasted in an oven, I’d be a little disappointed. Wouldn’t you? That’s kind of how I would feel if I ordered something that was labeled as “barbecued pork shoulder” on the menu and got pork slathered in sauce, cooked in a crockpot. “BBQ” pork shoulder I could almost let go, because you have plausible deniability there that “BBQ” is some shorthand for “with BBQ sauce” or somesuch, but not when you use a verb like “barbecued” which suggest that it is something that underwent the cooking process called “barbecuing.”
Talk to a Carolinan if you want very narrow barbecue definitions. To many of them the word “barbecue” literally means barbecued pork shoulder or whole hog, and you can order it simply by saying you want X pounds of barbecue, no further modifiers necessary.
This. Make sure it’s real, vinegar based sauce, and not the heretic sauce with tomato goo in it that they serve in western N.C. Anything else is grilling.
I have a container of something called “BBQ Seasoning” that I bought at winco years ago. Anything that gets that put on it is barbecue, including steamed peas or vegetable stew.
MMmmmm BBQ vegetable stew 
Well there is draw a line and there is DRAW a line if you know what I mean. Taco Bell may come out with some sorta BBQ Taco (gawd I hope they don’t read that) and when push comes to shove IMO you’d have to call it a BBQ Taco…mainly because what the hell ELSE would you call such a thing? I mean its covered in BBQ sauce, not mayonaise (double gawd I hope they don’t read that one). Yeah, you can argue that something with “BBQ sauce” is diffferent than something thats been “BBQed” but at some point its like argueing that Baptist don’t technically go to church because you believe that the Catholic way is the only right way.
Now whether such a thing was any damn good no matter what you called it or whether it was the strict definition of a “BBQed” whatever is another matter.
BBQ to me is Eastern NC pork, cooked over an open pit fire for 12 hours, wood, mopping sauce is vinegar based.
As in everything else, context matters. If someone wants to put a tasty plateful of what I would call “smoked brisket” in front of me and call it “BBQ” then I’m not going to argue semantics. When I talk about what comes out of my smoker then I use the artificial, perhaps needless and maybe just plain wrong distinction between salted but unspiced “smoked brisket” and salted and spiced “BBQ”. To my way of thinking, salt and black pepper would push it into BBQ territory, barely.
A BBQ joint nowadays usually has chicken, ribs, brisket and pulled pork. I like it all, and would also like to post the following musical review of BBQ:
(which I think I found here first)
Interestingly, the two would suggest very different things to me. If I see a restaurant advertising “barbecue”, I’m going to expect pulled pork (probably not even cooked over a grill) and ribs, either way with barbecue sauce on them. If a friend invites me over for a barbecue, I’ll expect food cooked outdoors, probably burgers or hot dogs, and probably not involving sauce.
But I’m not inclined to argue with what anyone does or does not call barbecue. I’m aware of some of the distinctions made, but they’re just not that important to me.
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In North Carolina, it IS a noun. Pulykamell had it right; around here, it’s either barbecued pork shoulder or whole hog. You can order it either chopped or sliced, and the eastern and western sides of the states have different ideas about the type of mop that should be used.
People from other places consider barbecue to be a verb, so they may have much more inclusive definitions of what they consider to be barbecued.
Cooking hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill is not a barbecue; it’s a cookout, or grilling out.
If I ask what is on the menu and the answer is “barbecue” I’m going to be expecting pulled pork. I wouldn’t be disappointed in chopped or sliced pork but pulled is what I’d be expecting. The only sauce I like is Louisanana Hot sauce, thankyouverymuch.
Now, if some one invites me to “a barbecue,” it could be anything from a whole hog roasted low and slow on a smoker to hotdogs cooked in the house and served on the deck. And that is OK. However, at this type of barbecue, potato salad is NOT optional.
My method of judging completely unknown barbecue joints involves checking out the sign. The basic rule of “the more unpiglike the behavior of the pig on the sign, the more likely the barbecue is good” has served me well so far. A second clue is that one is unlikely to find heavenly barbecue in upscale neighborhoods.
I used to barbecue on my outdoor gas grill until, one day, the valve broke and I had no choice but to cook what I’d prepared - baby back ribs slathered in my favorite sauce - in the oven. I put them under the broiler for a few minutes to get some gloss on them, then turned on the oven to 400 and left them in there for a half an hour, turning them over every 7-9 minutes. They came out much better than expected and the method is what I generally use now for convenience as well as result. Maybe heretical to some, but hey, it works and we’re not from Texas.
If I’m invited, I’ll bring beer and eat whatever the host is serving. If it’s meat cooked on a grill they can call it whatever they want; I want some.