‘Navigate’ Is an Overused Metaphor
And Other Observations From a Native English Speaker Who Relocated From India to the U.S.
In the 15th century, Italian merchant Amerigo Vespucci undertook many a voyage—navigating rough seas for months, sometimes years, between Europe and the New World.
There’s nothing I would change about that sentence.
Alas, today I read and hear about students “navigating” their way through college, executives “navigating” their way through corporate politics, and pretty much everybody “navigating” their way through lives replete with deadlines, inflation, and stress.
Not a day goes by when I don’t hear America’s most colloquially abused marine metaphor. “All hands on deck” is a distant second.
My writerly antennae perk …
