Am casually tracking the use of the phrase "reach out."
It has a phony spiritual ring. You don't say hey to an estranged loved one who has abandoned his or her religion, you "reach out" to them.
That emotionally-fraught sense of the word can be seen in these Wikipedia topics:
"Reach Out I'll Be There", a 1966 song by The Four Tops
Reach Out, a Texas-based charitable group that puts on Reach Music Festival
Reach Out! is an internet service targeted at young people that aims to provide information, support and resources about mental health issues and enable them to develop resilience, increase coping skills, and facilitate help-seeking behaviour.
I call it "phony" because the emotional sense has long been cheapened with ad campaigns such as the phone company's from a while back, "Reach Out and Touch Someone," which encouraged you to run up your long distance tab.
In the past several years, though, it has become business jargon. One day I had two voicemails from bank staffers I had called about CD rates, in two separate branches, who didn't say they were getting back to me, but were "reaching out" to me.
Today I encountered it in the New York Times, in the most secular context imaginable, a story about David Letterman being extorted over affairs with staffers:
Mr. Letterman said he reached out to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Re-e-ach out, and touch a DA.
