If there’s one word I would ban in any museum or arts sector text it would be engage. Until I strayed into the museum sector, I thought engage was what you did before you got married. But no. Apparently it’s what museums and arts organisations do with their visitors and audiences. They don’t talk to people. They engage with audiences. Sounds awful. Not at all what I want to do. I want to have a conversation. However, there’s nothing wrong with engaging as an adjective. Both paintings and babies can be engaging. It’s just they can’t be engaged with. Let’s start talking to people, not engaging with audiences, and we’ll all enjoy ourselves more.
Dea.