Latin: Utilize; German: Use

Our language has two main branches, Latin and German. English is a mutt language, so we’ve integrated words from numerous other cultures, but these are the main two that came together in the massive conglomerate of English. For the most part, Latinate words stayed in our most elevated speech, particularly the disciplines of math and science. Germanic words were the main body of our everyday speech. 

 

While this diversity led to an exceptional language mash-up, it also left us with a few redundancies. The most atrocious of these redundancies are the words “use,” Germanic, and “utilize,” Latinate. These words have the exact same meaning. The difference between them is the number of syllables it takes to express that meaning. There may be a few occasions on which the word “utilize” serves best, but I cannot think of any. 

 

For everyday speech, for professional writing, even for academic writing, “utilize” is a redundancy, the use of which only demonstrates the exceptional overreaching of the speaker or writer’s vocabulary. Unless the writer or speaker is involved in science or math where the frequency of Latinate words may lend itself rhymically or stylistically to “utilize,” use works perfectly well in all other cases.