another query (re catch phrases)

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Fri Jun 18 02:15:57 UTC 2010


Neither the "pulling strings" or "comforting" seems to me to be the same
as using "reaching out" as the verb form of the older concept of
"outreach", which has a long-established meaning in the business world
-- making contact with clients or potential clients.

DanG

On 6/17/2010 8:15 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: another query (re catch phrases)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5:55 PM -0400 6/17/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> I don't get out much, anymore. So, the language may very well have
>> evolved in ways that I'm unaware of, but, IAC, I find it hard to
>> imagine using either of these in business correspondence.
>>
>> I'm familiar with _reach out to_ only from TV-cop-show jargon, wherein
>> it's always used WRT string-pulling. The cops "reach out to" their
>> police-academy classmates and former partners who have transferred
>> out,  been promoted, have retired, or whoever in order to have a favor
>> done.
>> "I was going to have Smith transferred back to walking a beat, but he
>> reached out to the assistant chief, an academy buddy of his dad."
>>
>>
> Right, I'm familiar with that too from the same type of sources, but
> I've never thought of reaching out to in that sense--pulling strings,
> as you say, or using the old blue network, whatever--as being closely
> related to the reaching out in the sense of comforting (with the
> implication of emotional energy involved, going out on a limb, etc.)
> that we have in the "thank you for reaching out" formula.  The latter
> strikes me as a bit treacly (if it's not purely formulaic), the way
> "thank you for sharing" became before it became virtually unusable
> without intended sarcasm.
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list