don’t use utilize
Please.
Writers, whether you are writing a lowly blog, a popular book, or an academic text, if ever you see in a sentence of yours the word “utilize,” please, please, strike it out, without asking any questions, and replace it with the word “use.” Then read your sentence again. See how it says exactlty what you wanted?
Whether you need to appeal to Occam’s razor, George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, or just common aesthetic sense matters not one whit.
Just don’t utilize the word “utilize,” when all you mean is “use.”
Was there a reason that prompted this rant?
Comment by Kri — January 18, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
reading a book that keeps using the word “utilize.” driving me crazy.
Comment by hugh — January 18, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
also every writer should read orwell’s essay on english language at least once a year:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
which contains rules that should be on every writer’s wall:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Comment by hugh — January 18, 2007 @ 1:08 pm
As an employee of the high-tech industry, “utilize” is one of my longtime pet peeves, second only to “leverage” v. It’s worth noting, though, that “utilize” has a real meaning. One can “utilize” something by making utility from it in an unconventional way, such as using a dime to screw in a screw, or shaving with a kitchen knife, or using the end of a belt as a shoehorn. But, nobody knows that.
Comment by Nick — January 19, 2007 @ 12:01 am
see, I didn’t even know the *unconventional* spin. i did know that “utilize” means “put to use for a purpose” in a more specific way than “use” … but regardless, the loss of the word in 95% of its current usage would be welcomed.
Comment by hugh — January 19, 2007 @ 8:00 am
word nerds unite! I totally agree. and while we’re at it let’s endeavour to get Conrad Black say ‘try’ instead of ‘endeavour’
Comment by skinner — January 19, 2007 @ 1:10 pm
It’s great finding out which words people love to hate. My personal least fave is ‘obligate’ (why not just say ‘oblige’? Why, why?). I also have a hate on for ‘commence to start’. I was recently reading a series of posts about this phenomenon in academia at my favourite language blog, Language Log
Comment by Ella — January 19, 2007 @ 7:06 pm
also, the years following Y2K will henceforth be known as the Twenty-Oh-$X years, i.e. twenty-0h-seven instead of two thousand and seven. it wasnt’ one thousand, nine hundred and seven, or even nineteen hundred and seven, it was nineteen oh seven. Short, sweet and it matches the upcoming “twenty-tens” and “twenty thirties”.
Comment by jer — January 22, 2007 @ 10:41 am
Amen.
Comment by kara — January 22, 2007 @ 11:45 pm