Let’s get this straight right off the bat: For people who are serious about the subject, barbecue is a verb.

And if you’re going to be serious about some good pulled pork, you must know the lingo.

Well, sure, it’s a noun too, but really, barbecue is not so much about what you’re cooking but how you’re cooking it.

You can’t barbecue a steak. And you really aren’t going to throw another shrimp on the barbecue, says Lake E. High, president of the South Carolina Barbeque Association.

“Midwesterners or Yankees will say to friends, ‘I’m going to barbecue some hamburgers tonight.’ Or they will say, ‘Let’s put some brats on the barbecue and break out some beer,’ ” he says. “And while everyone will be having a great time sitting around in the smoke, the use of the word in that way is incorrect. That neighbor is going to grill some hamburgers, not barbecue them. The cooker he is going to cook them on should be called a grill, not a barbecue.”

Barbecue, most people believe, comes from the word barbacoa, a term the Caribbean natives used for the pirates who camped out along their beaches and cooked their food over an open flame.

Since the beginning of the country, High says, settlers in the South used barbecuing to cook tough (and therefore cheap) cuts of meat.

“Americans who live far away from the initial area where barbecue was first introduced by the native Indians to European colonists (in South Carolina) and who, therefore, don’t really have any historic connection to the earliest barbecue, are actually being misled into thinking they are eating real barbecue,” he says. “Regrettably, they are missing out on the true original and the very best types of genuine barbecue.”

Barbecue, as a verb, is the cooking of food, over a relatively low heat — between 225 and 250 degrees — for a looooooong time. Think hours ... maybe even days.

For good barbecue, equipment is important too, says Kay Crittendon, with White Jones Hardware.

You’ll need a grill, charcoal and wood chips to start with, she says.

She recommends the “Big Green Egg” for barbecue but admits there are several different options to choose from.

Also, she recommends natural chunk charcoal over pressed charcoal briquettes.

“With natural charcoal, there are no chemicals, it burns hotter and longer and with less ash,” she says. “It may be too hot for some types of barbecuing, but you work those things out.”

For serious barbecue, many people choose to cook indirectly, either with a fire box attached to the side of their grill or by using indirect heat, where coals are put to one side of the grill or around the outskirts of the grill.

And when using wood chips, Crittendon says, the options, like everything else, are endless.

In her family, the chips of choice are apple or apple and hickory chips soaked in apple juice before cooking.

“There’s just so many different options to choose from, different marinades, different sauces, even different kinds of wood chips,” she says. “It really depends on whatever you can come up with that works for you.”

In fact, Bob Brown, marshal of the Education Foundation of Oconee Memorial Weekend Cook-off, held on May 24, says there are two keys to good ‘cue.

“I always tell people ‘low and slow’ and ‘practice, man, practice,’” he says. “But most important, barbecue should be fun.”

Brown says that unlike the other states, there are four sauces prevalent in South Carolina: the mustard based, the vinegar based, the light tomato based and the heavy (Kraft Foods) tomato based. Around here, he said, the sauce is a light tomato base, and the meat is pork.

“It’s Boston butts in the Upstate for pulled pork,” he says.

At the Memorial Weekend Cook-off, regulars and amateurs can show off their barbecue skills and compete for prizes.

Located in downtown Seneca, the event pulls in the pros with $20,000 special-made rigs and others with little Webers.

Brown recommends anyone interested in getting serious about barbecue should start with some inexpensive equipment and learn everything they can.

“You need to know your pit, how it cooks, what its capabilities are. You need to know where its hot spots and cold spots are,” he says. “And you need to experiment. But when you do, keep good records of what you did, the way you did it and why you did it. Keep records of measurements and how much of what you used in rubs and sauces.”

Most of all, he says, join a barbecue association, such as the South Carolina Barbeque Association. Or take a class, like BBQ School by the South Carolina Pitmasters.

“You’ll be around like-minded people,” he says, “and you’ll learn a lot.”