outro

[Stone, William]

It should be noted that in the earliest OED reference to outro from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, the song consisted of an intro and an outro with nothing between them and no clear point at which one finished and the other started. The term seemed to be merely a joke in a very funny song.
 
Dr. William J. Stone 
Associate Professor 
TESL Program 
Northeastern Illinois University

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Victor Steinbok
Sent: Tue 10/26/2010 2:16 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: outro



An indirect outgrowth from the "buck" question (very circuitous, so I'll
skip the connection).

OED has the music/broadcasting sense of "outro". But Wiki has a separate
entry for "Outro (computer gaming)" with a different (albeit related)
meaning.

http://bit.ly/9wG27L
> In computer and video gaming, the term "outro" refers to a sequence of
> graphics and music presented to the player as a reward for successful
> completion of the entire game. Outros are also commonly referred to as
> the game's ending.

OED's definition is much simpler:

> A concluding section, esp. of a piece of music or a broadcast programme.

Three of OED samples are tied to a song and two to broadcasting. Nothing
on electronic gaming. Most other dictionaries only refer to music.

An interesting blend of the two--song and broadcast--appears on WiseGeek.

The entry suggests that "outro" is the instrumental fade-out in music
"destined for radio airplay", which allows DJs to announce the song and
artist while the song is still playing.

All of these are obviously related, despite the variations, and all are
intended as, in some sense, opposite of "intro".

     VS-)

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