What is a segway in speech terms?
Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at
3:52 pm
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A way of bringing up the next topic.
Speaking of the next topic, here’s an example of a segway.
That reminds me, did you know that George Bush fell off his segway because he didn’t know you were supposed to turn it on?
While we’re on the subject, have you ever ridden a segway?
Etc… those were all examples of segways.
A "segue" is a transition, a passage of text that connects one subject to another. So, if a speech were discussing Iraq and then went into the economy, it might have a segue that said, "And as long as the Iraq invasion continues, we will have less money at home, which is why our economy is now in trouble. Speaking of the economy…"
The OED only defines segue in its musical sense, but you can see the meaning: "An uninterrupted transition from one song or melody to another"
It is segue although it is pronounced as you have spelled it. It means "to follow" and in English is a smooth transition from one topic to another. The Spanish for "to follow" is segir. The expression for something which does NOT follow smoothly is the Latin non sequitur.
The word is Segue…
and it is a manner of transition–a way of bridging one subject to another.
example:
I’m talking about birds, I want to talk about a friend who copy-cats me… I might have a a story or something about a parrot to bridge the subject of birds into that of copycatting.
(It’s a generic example, I know… the real masters of segue are comedians–pay attention to how they move from one subject to the next–that would be your best example).
hope it helps.