Jeff texted an interesting question today. He and Zack occasionally recommend songs to each other and, today, he sent a song recommendation to Zack to “cue it up on his playlist.” Zack responded that he would “be sure to queue it up.”

“Cue” refers to a signal or a prompt that triggers an action; “queue” refers to a line or sequence of people or things waiting for something. Jeff’s thought was that either could be correct in his exchange with Zack because Zack could “queue” the song in line to play later, or he could “cue” the song whenever he’s ready to listen to it. Jeff asked for my thoughts.

I checked with Grammarly and Google, and I have to fall in line with Jeff. If Zack has a string of songs to play, including the one suggested by Jeff, he could “cue” (prompt) the “queue” (line) when he wants to listen to the song.

Fun times with English. 🙂