Pop quiz: In which of the following sentences did I, in my editorial wisdom, let utilize stand, instead of replacing it with the infinitely more graceful and unobtrusive use?
a) Figure X represents the unsafe worker performance identification form, to be utilized as the initial step of the mine worker performance observation strategy.
b) As a result, such ores in most cases cannot be effectively utilized due to insufficient technology.
c) Red mud is being used as an additive for building materials, which opens the potential to utilize red mud in industries such as ceramics.
d) For accuracy, the feed ash was calculated utilizing the concentrate and tailing ash contents and it was compared to the ash content of the original feed sample containing 3.8% on moisture free bases.
Answer: b and d
Bonus: which of the above sentences should have been edited to replace utilize with use?
Answer: All but b, and even that one’s iffy.
My editorial lapse indicates the hold that utilize has on our collective consciousness: even the most exacting among us believe that if it’s scientific, it’s okay to muddy a sentence with an unnecessary but more “formal” sounding utilize.
Part of the problem is that there is no solid agreement among grammarians as to what utilize actually means. Utilize, which comes from the same Latin root as use, entered the language via French in the 19th century; use entered via the same language but with the Normans in 1066. Both Webster’s New World College Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary define utilize as essentially equivalent to use: “to put to use; make practical or effective use of.” The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, defines it as “to make or render useful; to convert to use, turn to account,” with the critical part, according to many grammarians, being the “convert to use” part, indicating that an object being utilized must be put to a use for which it was not originally intended. A favorite correct example of this usage is “He utilized his laptop as a pillow.”
I suppose that example does fulfill the letter of the definition. However, since it serves as a perfect example of useless embellishment (did you really need the word utilize to understand that his laptop was not a pillow?), it brings us back to the same problem, which is: why do we even have the word utilize in our language, and why are scientists so fond of using it?
Since I don't have space here to delve into the glorious polyglot mess that is the English language, I'm going to tackle the second question.
There are several factors at work, here: there is the need to provide what is expected. We're writing scientific papers; hence, we feel an overpowering urge to provide scientific diction. Utilize, and a host of similar but not quite as egregious words, help give the text the proper flavor.
It is this urge, so often misplaced (is someone going to mistake a paper with 17 equations and five tables for anything but a technical paper?), so often leading to linguistic missteps, that is frequently ridiculed among copyeditors.
"Utilize is one of those 'smart' words people throw into cover letters, business reports, and research papers in the hopes of coming off as sounding super amazingly intelligent," says Grammar Party of grammarpartyblog.com.
Grammar Girl, at grammar.quickanddirtytips.com, says that utilize is one of those pretentious "big words that try to make the writer sound important or knowledgeable" and that can easily be replaced with "a normal, unimpressive word that gets the point across without much fuss."
And John Keller, at the Mil & Aero Blog, rants, "utilize is not a synonym for use, and you can't treat it as such. Some people think it is, and in their misguided, futile attempts to make themselves sound smart, write utilize where the word doesn't fit at all. Those who do this, in my book, succeed only in making themselves sound not only stilted and stand-offish, but ignorant as well."
Well. A person might be excused for never wanting to use utilize ever again. The truth is, however, that utilize does work better in a few limited situations. For example, this usage note from American Heritage Dictionary’s usage section, makes a much more subtle clarification of the difference between use and utilize:
"A number of critics have remarked that utilize is an unnecessary substitute for use. It is true that many occurrences of utilize could be replaced by use with no loss to anything but pretentiousness, for example, in sentences such as They utilized questionable methods in their analysis or We hope that many commuters will continue to utilize mass transit after the bridge has reopened. But utilize can mean "to find a profitable or practical use for." Thus the sentence The teachers were unable to use the new computers might mean only that the teachers were unable to operate the computers, whereas The teachers were unable to utilize the new computers suggests that the teachers could not find ways to employ the computers in instruction."
The purpose of scientific writing, and thus the purpose of scientific diction, is to be as clear and precise as possible. Over the past three hundred years, scientific writing has evolved to replace such vague descriptions as "I cut holes about as long and as small as a tailor's needle" with the much more precise "I cut three holes 5.5 cm long by 5 mm wide at 1-cm spacing." It may not be elegant, it may not be easy to read, but it is clear.
When choosing use or utilize, then, the first question to ask is which word makes the sentence more precise and clear. If you're up for it, you could also ask yourself if utilize is the only word that makes sense in context (the answer is probably no). Finally: when in doubt, leave utilize out.
Emily Wortman-Wunder is the editor of Minerals & Metallurgical Processing, Transactions and technical publications at the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Engineering, Inc. (SME) in Englewood, CO.