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I hate the word ‘utilize’.

There is an art form to selecting words. One mustn’t be drab, nor overly verbose. Large words should be used for clarity and precision in terms of expressing one’s intent. They should NOT be used to merely for the sake of making the speaker sound smarter or more official. As my wonderful philosophy professor once lectured, this makes your writing [or speaking] ‘fluffy’. It takes up lots of space, but has little substance. Further, if one is hellbent on using an impressive sounding word, make damn sure it means what you think it means. When people violate these two rules, I think back to that professor and how I ought to correct the culprits in his honour. Guillermo, this post is for you.

The first example of the misuse of words comes straight from the lecture that ultimately inspired this post. ‘Utilize’. This word is the epitome of ‘fluffy’ language. There is not one instance where the word ‘utilize’ adds any meaning that could not be derived from the word ‘use’.
Indeed, the only time ‘utilize’ is used is when the speaker/writer wants to sound smart and gain extra credibility without earning it. Try it out. The next time you hear someone say ‘utilize’, check the context. They are most likely trying to convince their audience of a) their position, b) their intelligence, or c) their import. Further, if you take their sentence and put in ‘use’ instead of ‘utilize’, you will find that not one iota of meaning has been lost.

Let us compare this to another pair of words: ‘end’ and ‘terminate’. Like the set in our example, they are synonyms. However, there is an important difference. Compare the following:

“My job was terminated today.”
“My work day terminated at 4:30 today.”

The word ‘terminate’ has a sense of finality to it that is not present in ‘end’. In our first sentence, ‘terminate’ conveys that the speaker was fired, that their job is no more. It is a valid use of a large word.
The second sentence doesn’t sound right, though, as the speaker is merely speaking of what time they finished their job that day. This conflicts with the extra meaning associated with ‘terminate’. As the message doesn’t contain the extra meaning, it is an incorrect application of the larger word. Read the rest of this entry »