Despite their fondness for throwing tea into the sea, America remains Britain’s closest ally. I work for an American company and have the pleasure of visiting regularly. We also share a common language. This is an excellent state of affairs, as far as I am concerned.
I have no doubt that my US colleagues have a chuckle every time I say ‘jolly good’, ‘crumbs!’ and describe the United States as America.
I allow myself a little chuckle when my US colleagues ask me to ‘reach out’ to someone or for someone to ‘reach out’ to me.
‘X will reach out to you’ is a common phrase. I always have this vision of someone about to fall off a cliff reaching for me in desperation, arms waving, with a look of terror on his or her face.
All the person in question is usually going to do is drop me a mail checking on the number of servers we need to run a hundred Sun Rays.
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Christopher Saul's Blog 
22/07/2008 at 17:03 |
I hate that phrase. Along with crunchy hotel room towels I thing @bhlackey had a laugh about that phrase as well.
22/07/2008 at 17:35 |
When I was at work (long time ago), it was all about stepping up to the plate (in the UK, perhaps it should be ‘stepping up to the wicket’) and raising the bar. In the end they raised the bar so high that I couldn’t see it.
Found a good piece on useless office slang:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7457287.stm
22/07/2008 at 20:58 |
My guess is that it started from an old AT&T advertising slogan to encourage more phone calling: "Reach out and touch someone"
24/07/2008 at 08:00 |
I find "circle the wagons" does not work very well with non-Americans. My dad had to explain "sticky wicket" to me.
24/07/2008 at 08:00 |
I find "circle the wagons" does not work very well with non-Americans. My dad had to explain "sticky wicket" to me.