Why talk, when you can reach out to someone?

A certain phrase is popping up more and more, in blogs, news articles, conversation. I heard it in TV dialogue the other night. And I spotted it in a Times Colonist story.

At its core is “reached out to” — as in, “We’ve reached out to Company X for comment” or “We’ve reached out for confirmation” or “I’ll reach out to her to make it right”

In the old days, it might have been, “I’ll contact her” or “Company X did not respond to calls for comment.”

But something new is needed in the age of Facebook, Twitter and text messages.

“Reached out to” seems to be an appropriate enough shorthand for saying you’re trying all sorts of ways to contact someone — even if it sounds odd.

Here’s some warmup sentences I’ve been working on, to prepare myself for using the phrase in real life.

I reached out to the cat to see if she would get off the couch.

Has John reached out to Mary about that misunderstanding last night?

He reached out to her, and got a slap in the face.

Might work. But I think I have to practise more to make it sound natural.

Here are some real life examples.

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Reached out to, example 1