Segway vs. Segue

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Emily from San Diego.

Hello, Emily, what can we do for you?

So this happened last week. I was chatting with a colleague on Instant Message and discussing how it’s going to address this kind of random topic with another colleague. So I was telling her my plan, and I was going to use an email to segue into this specific topic.

So on Instant Message, you’re kind of like hasty, you kind of type quickly. So as I was typing it out of the word segue, and I phonetically sounded it out, I typed it S-E-G-W-A-Y. And then I hit send. And then I realized that the instant messenger actually autocorrected it and capitalized the S. Then I realized, oh my God, I actually spelled it incorrectly. So I went to Google and I learned it’s spelled S-E-G-U-E. So I was baffled. So either I’ve been spelling it incorrectly my entire life, which is not realistic because I am a terrible speller, but also the fact I might not have ever used it before in writing, or I’m just kind of a product of this commercialization since the brand Segway came out right when I was graduating high school. So I can’t imagine I’m the only one with this dilemma.

No, I don’t think you are at all. So you’re worried that the brand name has replaced the traditional spelling in your lexicon as well as in other people’s?

Yes. Okay. You know, I have to tell you, I don’t have data on this, but I think I’ve noticed the same thing. It just is a more natural pronunciation for that word because S-E-G-U-E does not look like English. It is not a spelling that you would expect to find in a word that is so simple to say.

I agree.

Yeah.

So we’re on the same page here.

All right.

Thanks for calling.

No, I’m kidding. So your deeper issue here is, though, what can you do to fend this off?

I guess it’s just I can’t believe I’ve just been doing it incorrectly this whole time. And I kind of wanted, why have I been spelling it incorrectly? I understand because, you know, segue as much S-E-G-W-A-Y is definitely much more phonetically appropriate for it. But I think it’s just more of just curious about, I guess, others or how rampant this is and all that stuff.

Yeah, I think part of the issue is that we don’t have enough Latin classes, because if you go back to Latin, it comes from a Latin word, sequo, that means to follow. It’s its like, you know, the expression non sequitur, it doesn’t follow. But it came to us through Italian. It came to us through Italian.

So the Latin pronunciation wouldn’t necessarily hold sway.

No, but I’m saying if you see the Italian, you can recognize the Latin. So it’s a seguire in Italian, the verb to follow, right? S-E-G-U-I-R-E.

Anyway here, so I don’t think there’s anything to be done about this. It’s just one of the ways that language changes. We can bemoan it and decry it, but we can’t necessarily stop it.

There’s a rule that some linguists use, which has kind of been borrowed from commerce and money, and it has to do with the simplest form of a word will win out. The easiest, least friction will often prevail over centuries or even longer. And I think that’s what’s happening here.

The brand name of this device is, it doesn’t even feel like a brand name. I wonder what the marketing people of that company do. It must feel so inspecific to them, so unexceptional, like an ordinary word almost.

Yeah, I’d agree.

And then I would think if I was a Segway brand, that spelling is taking over for that term, for S-E-G-U-E. So their brand is being used inappropriately in terms of marketing and searching for how their brand is doing. Could kind of interfere with some of that traffic and that data that they get.

Yeah, I’ve had that happen to me when I’ve been dictating too on my phone.

Yeah, the brand names stick in there, right? I do see, if you look on Twitter, it’s a real great snapshot of how people spell when they’re just typing on the fly and not writing formal documents. You do see a few people out of every hundred mentions of the word who mean segue as in a transition and not segue as in the two-wheeled vehicle. But it does look like my own feeling that the brand name was pushing out the spelling of the word isn’t necessarily borne out by the evidence. So perhaps you and I both have an issue where we’re seeing the outlier cases and feeling like they’re dominating.

All right. I think that’s good. Thank you very much.

Emily, thank you for your call. We really appreciate it.

All right. Bye.

Take care.

Thanks, Emily.

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