Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Segue and Segway

  • 11-07-2019 8:11am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 27,939 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    I used to use the word 'segue' in the sense of moving smoothly from one topic to another. Then I was told and read several times that the word was Segway. I didn't bother to look it up and (unusually for me) accepted that the word I was supposed to be using was Segway, even though I knew this was (also) a form of transportation.

    Fast forward a couple of years and I finally checked it, and guess what! I was right. Segway only means the transport device. If you want to segue from one topic or piece of music to another you can do so!

    Now I have to spread the word. It is at least more clear-cut than trying to persuade people about then and than, accept and except and all the other dodgy pairs of words that get transposed.


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 1,996 ✭✭✭two wheels good


    What you need for your campaign is:
    "Dreyer's English", Utterly correct guide to clarity. Link

    Recent publication by Random House copy editor. Light-hearted but quite serious. NYT best-seller apparently. And 'segue' has an entry.
    (I wonder does it comment on starting a sentence with 'and'. )


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ Ibrahim Rapid Headhunter


    They are called eggcorns. Like C change for sea change, or on tender hooks for on tenterhooks.


  • Administrators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,703 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭hullaballoo


    I have a friend who drops these eggcorns a lot and I never correct him because there's a certain poetry in them.

    He said of an elderly judge "she'll blow her casket" instead of gasket; he will also regularly tell me "you're very gun ho about it..." instead of gung-ho etc.

    You can always see where he's coming from.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,497 ✭✭✭ Tinsley Acidic Ignition


    This one irks me because the company, Segway Inc., intentionally adopted a homophone of the word segue that, ironically, is now threatening to replace that word's proper spelling.

    I always tell offenders that Segway is a brand name for a personal transporter, should always be capitalized, and should never be used as a verb; the proper word for an uninterrupted transition from one thing to another is segue, which can be used either as a noun or verb.

    It's a losing battle, though.


Advertisement