I recently discovered something that both annoyed me and
made me feel slightly stupid.
The word ‘segue’ is not pronounced ‘seeg’. It is, instead,
pronounced ‘segway’.
Now at this point, I really really hope that a few of you
are thinking ‘the Segway; isn’t that just the wheeled alternative to walking around
that debuted in the early noughties?’ Well, sadly, no. It turns out that segway is the
correct pronunciation of the word segue, which means to move seamlessly from one topic to another.
The thing is, I was never vagway about how to pronounce
segway. I always pronounced it the seeg way, never thought twice about it. It
seems to be a rogway word and I intend to continway to pronounce it seeg. This
does lead me to wonder, however, about the valway of other words ending in ue.
Should all good stories end with an epilogway? Is it once again in vogway to
have a fondway party, or a lemon meringway pie for your birthday? It looks like
it would be easy to misconstrway the way we pronounce words like argway, issway
and residway. Not to fatigway you with constantly having to subdway the urge to
correct this language monologway, but I think this way of thinking may have
valway, possibly even virtway.
This isn’t by any means a prologway to anything greater; it
would be untrway of me to suggest otherwise. I only wanted to subdway the
little tongway in my head, that retinway of words, which have been long
overdway their say.
I think it’s almost out of my system. Suffice to say that
whenever a colleagway mentions it at work, whenever you are feeling blway,
whenever you listen to the Pogways (particularly at Christmas), you’ll
hopefully think of this catalogway of intrigway and instead pursway a different
vocalisation of the poor, confused ue letter group.
Maybe even while you ride on your Segway.
