tommus wrote:aokoye wrote:I suppose that's also a nice segway into mentioning Powells Bookstore
Thank you for increasing my vocabulary by one. I know that a segway is a recently-invented two-wheeled vehicle. I did not know it was also a "smooth transition from one topic to another". However, despite a lot of differences of opinion throughout the Internet, it appears that it should be spelled 'segue" for the latter meaning.
Merriam-Webster's position
Segway is how segue is pronounced in English. Segue, however, is a word that I can almost never remember how to spell and spell check can't pick up to say it's life. I was well aware of the misspelling - thanks French for giving us (English) that word and so many other French words that I can't spell to save my life.
I would also be unsurprised if I typed that on my phone at which point I really wouldn't be bothered with trying to find the correct spelling of segue. That, however, isn't a very good segue into the ridiculous prices of out of print materials but I could make it a segue into the ridiculous amount of Segway tours around Powells where you can get rather good deals on used language learning materials. If I really wanted to be correct I would spell it Powell's. That said I know of no one who does that in practice (outside of marketing and journalistic publications) and more importantly calling something "Powell's" in writing (we often drop "bookstore") with the possessive -s and no noun that it modifies is actually one small step too far into ungrammatical English (which is saying a lot if you've read some of my posts, and I know you have) as opposed to calling it "Powells" with the assumption that "Powells" isn't the name of a person. In spoken English when referring to the bookstore this isn't a major issue...just like segue and Segway (I didn't even try that time).
And yes - you did hit a tender spot.