Engage

Captain Picard of Star Trek The Next Generation said it often. He would take his seat at the helm and in his typical Jean-Luc Picard voice say, "Engage." Sometimes he would say it more forceful, like when they had to hurry up and get the heck out of there because they had to go rescue someone from the Romulans or because the super inter binary galactic mass was going to close in on itself and take them with it ( I made the name up). Anyway, engage was just one of Picard's favorite words to say, but when he said it it didn't sound over used.

Today engage is like a really cheap prostitute that anyone can afford. It is tossed around and used in, in my opinion, the stupidest and more unnecessary ways. To me it has always meant when a couple decides to get married. They announce to their friends and family that they are engaged, ok good use. To say someone has a knack for keeping people's attention, that the person is fascinating or very interesting, he or she is said to be engaging, good use. When Picard says engage to mean "Let's get the heck out of here." we again have good use of the word. When we say we started up a conversation with someone, "We engaged in conversation." is also a good use of it, but it gets ridiculous when they over use it in this last meaning. "If we engage into the issue I'm sure we'll resolve it." "You must engage them in order to better understand their situation." "If we have an engaging engagement we will finish our work faster." Ok, I haven't really heard the last one, but wait it'll come. I'm sure it's just ready to pop out of some dumbass' mouth. I just don't understand why people don't just speak plainly. What's wrong with "Let's talk about the issue and see if we can resolve it." or "I'll speak with them to better understand their situation." These sentences are just as good.

The excessive use of a word makes it sound so fake, so phony baloney. It seems people think that by tossing engage around they sound smarter or more PC. I don't think they do. I think they sound like they jumped on the band wagon of excessive use of words. Frankly I find it disengaging and not at all part of true engagementalism.

Let's do our part to stop these excessive use of words fanatics. Next time you hear an engaged phrase that really didn't need to be, stop the person, preferably in mid-sentence, and say, "You know what, NO you cannot over use it." and then just walk away.

picture of Picard from: www.itusozluk.com