another query (re catch phrases)

[Laurence Horn]

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

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