Homophones. Words that sound alike, but have different spellings and different meanings. They’re a rich source of fodder for Mind Your Language. Today’s example: the incorrect but commonly-seen expression ‘take a queue’. You simply don’t do that; you take a cue.
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The relevant meaning of ‘cue’ in this sense is a “guiding suggestion”. When you take a cue from somebody, you are following their lead, but you are not standing in line behind them. In no way are you forming a queue.
The only possible way in which you could ‘take a queue’ is if you led a group of waiting people somewhere else, and that clearly isn’t what this recent BusinessDay post meant meant when it proclaimed: “We should take a queue from countries like the US.” Wrong.
Lifehacker’s Mind Your Language column offers bossy advice on improving your writing.
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