“Why doesn’t anyone ever do what you ask them to?” inquired my husband, who is something of an expert on the question, I should have thought. He was referring specifically to a plea I made three years ago to people I’ve never met to stop sending emails that begin: “I am reaching out to you.”
But it has grown worse. Using the expression makes it sound as though the emailer is deranged. Reach out has for more than a century meant “to offer sympathy, support or assistance” to people. Correlatively it can mean to seek those things. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has acquired the habit of issuing a Christmas message. For 2025 he said: “At this time of the year, which celebrates love and abundance, loss or hardship can feel even more acute. Reach out. It can make a huge difference. That is what Christmas is about.” Perhaps so, but he did not mean “send an unsolicited email plugging a commercial product.”
The touchy-feely meaning of reach out made a statement by US Navy Secretary John Phelan sound all the funnier. Commenting on Donald Trump’s planned battleship, he said: “This ship isn’t just to swat the arrows. It is going to reach out and kill the archers.”
The phrase recently found its way into a ridiculous case in the UK where a man is being threatened with a fine for displaying a 20ft golden nude statue in his garden. A spokesperson for Wigan Council said: “We have contacted the owner to explain the requirements for permission and will reach out again if necessary to better understand his intentions.”
Perhaps because its meaning is unspecific, reach out appeals to horoscope columnists: “Swap stubborn silence for calm connection and reach out this week.” This vagueness makes it impossible to know what a spokesman for the Duchess of Sussex meant by saying: “I can confirm she has reached out to her father.” Does it mean that she visited his hospital bedside or that she rang a number that wasn’t answered?
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