Lingo: "Reach Out"
As a mental health professional, "reaching out" has always meant "outreach" to me. For instance getting in a van to visit a patient who dropped out of treatment and is beginning to worry his wife and kids.
Imagine my horror when I was copied on an e-mail suggesting that a colleague "reach out" to me. It caused me to worry that I seemed holed-up and dangerous.
A rosier view gave me a vision of helping hands reaching out to clasp mine in solidarity or of olive branches waving gently in the breeze.
But no. It dawned on me that it was some kind of business euphemism for "ask her to do something for you."
So here the Ignorama asks: Why do we do this to our language and to ourselves? What about this lingo seduces even the best of us ?
Imagine my horror when I was copied on an e-mail suggesting that a colleague "reach out" to me. It caused me to worry that I seemed holed-up and dangerous.
A rosier view gave me a vision of helping hands reaching out to clasp mine in solidarity or of olive branches waving gently in the breeze.
But no. It dawned on me that it was some kind of business euphemism for "ask her to do something for you."
So here the Ignorama asks: Why do we do this to our language and to ourselves? What about this lingo seduces even the best of us ?
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