It's the word of the day for February 16th.

Today's word is non-sequitur, spelled as two words as they would be in Latin,

N-O-N-S-E-Q-U-I-T-U-R. Non-S-E-Q-U-R. It's a noun. A non-sequitur is a statement that either does not logically follow from or is not clearly related to what was previously said. Here's the word used from a sentence in the New York Times by Jonathan Mingle.

Late on Saturday, as members of Congress scrambled to strike a deal for legislation that would

raise the nation's debt ceiling, they agreed to a total non-sequitur in the text they would

release the next day. After a series of late-in-the-game interventions by

lobbyists and energy executives, the draft bill declared the construction and operation of a natural

gas pipeline to be required in the national interest. It wasn't really germane to the debt ceiling,

at least not in the literal sense.

The term non-sequitur comes directly from Latin, in which language it means it does not follow.

Although the Latin non-sequitur can constitute a phrase or even a complete sentence,

in English, non-sequitur is a noun, and thus it follows that the plural of

non-sequitur is non-sequiters. Borrowed into English in the 16th century by logicians,

non-sequitur initially referred to a conclusion that did not follow the statements preceding it.

The meaning has now broadened to include statements that are

seemingly unrelated to the topic at hand, or that seem to come out of the blue. So if you ever

forget the definition of non-sequitur, just remember, a penny saved is a penny earned.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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