SEGUE

[Dr. Goodword]

• segue •

Pronunciation: seg-way • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, intransitive

Meaning: To transition directly from one part or section to another without any intermediate steps.

Notes: A decade or two ago this word was the rage in academic circles. One did not transition from one topic to another but segued across topics. Today it remains a part of the general vocabulary that we all may use in place of transition. It also serves just as well as a noun, as in an unexpected segue to another topic.

In Play: A segue is a direct, often sudden, shift from one topic to another: "We were talking about washing the car; how did we segue into a discussion of compensation?" Segues can occur on a larger scale, too: "Hardy Belcher's life quickly segued into a morass of gluttony when he inherited his father's money."

Word History: Today's Good Word is the 3rd person singular present tense of the Italian verb seguire "to follow", segue "he/she/it follows". Italian inherited this verb from Latin sequi "to follow". It underlies a host of words referring to following that English borrowed from Latin and its daughters, the Romance languages. These include an earlier Good Word, sequacious, as well as sequence, persecute, and suit, as in "to follow suit". Even the ordinal number following the first one, second, comes from this root. (Time for us now to segue into an expression of appreciation to Robert Fitzgerald for suggesting today's Good Word.)

[sluggo]

Nice to hear the etymology. Segué is an absolutely vital term in radio where (I'd think) it gets its primary use as the transition between songs- at least in those vanishing studios actually inhabited by a human. Pathetically most of what we can hear today is a computer prearrangement, with all the predictable passion of the same kind of marriage

I suspect the same underlying reasons have excised the longstanding accent -of which Doc makes no mention. Was there no French intermediary?

Of many instances, I recall one time I slipped on an album cover and nearly broke my arm scrambling to get the record that would make the perfect segué out of the one that was about to end in ten seconds (made it though)

[Perry]

Pathetically most of what we can hear today is a computer prearrangement, with all the predictable passion of the same kind of marriage

That is why WNCW (listen online at http://www.wncw.org prides itself on "radio made from scratch".

[Stargzer]

... I suspect the same underlying reasons have excised the longstanding accent -of which Doc makes no mention. Was there no French intermediary?
...

Well, he did say it came from Italian, not French. My copy of Websters, which is as old as my Federal career, also says it comes from Italian, Vulgar Latin, and Latin, with nary a word nor even an abbreviation about "la langue française." Perhaps the "accent aigu" was first used by someone trying to appear "cultured" or "educated" by making people think it was a French word? An "e" with an acute accent is used in Italian only if the "e" at the end of the word is accented, according to Wikipedia. Surely our Tuscan correspondent can shed some light on this the next time the Great Internet Carrier Pigeon flies over his portion of Northern Italy.

[sluggo]

Perhaps the "accent aigu" was first used by someone trying to appear "cultured" or "educated" by making people think it was a French word? An "e" with an acute accent is used in Italian only if the "e" at the end of the word is accented, according to Wikipedia...

Aye, I'm aware of that, but until now every time I've seen the word (which in 23 years of radio adds up to quite a few), it's had an accent. Absent a French connection I would think we Anglophones must have consciously installed it so that it didn't become "seeg" or "se-goo" -which after all is what it would look like without it.

Or is this a repartée of naïveté?

@Perry: I actually have a better signal for WNCW here in the mts. I must insert that their scratch is scratched when they go to that deplorable canned Whirled Crappé show (<<another accent!!)