When a tap is a knock-out.

One of the handiest journalese verbs is “tap”, when it means choose, select, award or honor and not when it means to touch or knock or hit or tap-dance. It’s one of those words that you’d never use in a conversation, such as, “I tapped Joe to be in charge of the Martinis.” Great example was in the Boston Globe, Nov. 6, 2016, with this headline:  “MIT tapped to redevelop Volpe Center in Cambridge.” And the story lede: “One of the biggest prizes in Boston-area real estate went Tuesday to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, when US officials tapped the university to redevelop the Volpe Transportation Center in Kendall Square.  MIT beat out a half-dozen major real estate firms for the 14-acre site, which is one of the last remaining big properties that can be redeveloped in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country. ”

I expect those half-dozen losers felt totally knocked out by the tap.