Multi-syllabic words when simple ones will suffice

I was reading the wizard's review on the Freemont and stumbled across this gem:

"I'm taking a stand against using multi-syllabic words when simple ones will suffice"

My biggest gripe in this category is "utilize". I am pretty convinced that in every possible context, "use" means the same as "utilize". My dad pointed this out to me a long time ago and I still have an involuntary physical reaction, something like a shudder, when I hear someone say "utilize" or "utilization".

Question 1: Does anyone have a context where utilize is more appropriate than use?

Question 2: Can anyone provide other examples for my amusement?

I would agree that they are pretty much interchangable, so why utilize (sorry, I couldn't resist) "utilize"? It seems to me that people might say "utilize" if they really needed what they are referring to. As if to put an emphasis on it. For example, if I were on Millionaire, and had a question where I had no clue as to the answer, I might say that I want to utilize a lifeline.

Quote: dwheatley

Question 1: Does anyone have a context where utilize is more appropriate than use?

Question 2: Can anyone provide other examples for my amusement?

Q1: The utility truck utilizes useful tools.

Q2: The way you spell "utility" is u.t.i.l.i.t.y.

There are a number of other multi-syllabic and essentially useless words, one of which is "essentially" but the most notable word with essentially no useful utility is "basically."

--Dorothy

I've got a different pet peeve. I'd rather see someone vary their words, like using 'use' and 'utilize,' rather than say 'use' over and over. Gets boring.

Quote: dwheatley

I was reading the wizard's review on the Freemont and stumbled across this gem:

"I'm taking a stand against using multi-syllabic words when simple ones will suffice"

My biggest gripe in this category is "utilize". I am pretty convinced that in every possible context, "use" means the same as "utilize". My dad pointed this out to me a long time ago and I still have an involuntary physical reaction, something like a shudder, when I hear someone say "utilize" or "utilization".

Question 1: Does anyone have a context where utilize is more appropriate than use?

Question 2: Can anyone provide other examples for my amusement?

Worrying about the manner of the message can twaddlize the meaning.

ESCHEW OBFUSCATION

Quote: wildqat

ESCHEW OBFUSCATION

OK, wildqat gets the award

"I'm taking a stand against using multi-syllabic words when simple ones will suffice"


Question 1: Does anyone have a context where utilize is more appropriate than use?





Yes, my song goes "I want to utilize my odds, so I can brutalize your wads"

OK?
lol

Quote: Wizard

I would agree that they are pretty much interchangable, so why utilize (sorry, I couldn't resist) "utilize"? It seems to me that people might say "utilize" if they really needed what they are referring to. As if to put an emphasis on it. For example, if I were on Millionaire, and had a question where I had no clue as to the answer, I might say that I want to utilize a lifeline.

One of the wonderful aspects of English is its immense vocabulary, which enables a user of the language to distinguish fine shades of meaning.

To "use" something is to employ it in some fashion to accomplish some goal. To "utilize" something is TO MAKE IT USEFUL. When Bear Grylls constructs a raft out of the debris he finds on a desert island, he UTILIZES the debris. When he takes out his knife to cut palm fronds to lash the debris together, he USES that knife.

Quote: DorothyGale

Q1: The utility truck utilizes useful tools.

Q2: The way you spell "utility" is u.t.i.l.i.t.y.

There are a number of other multi-syllabic and essentially useless words, one of which is "essentially" but the most notable word with essentially no useful utility is "basically."

--Dorothy

Not quite. "Basically", as it SHOULD be used, refers to a thing's reduction to its primary nature: "For all her pretensions, she was basically just a poor girl from Kansas." "Essentially" refers to essence, the fundamental nature of a thing: "Dorothy's essence was that she was a poor girl from Kansas."

The distinction is subtle and most people consider the words interchangeable. "Basically" has been kicked downstairs in the vernacular because so many people use it as a blank-space let-my-mind-catch-up-with-my-mouth placeholder (like "like").

Quote: wildqat

ESCHEW OBFUSCATION

But could you state that concept equally clearly in some other way without using more words? In other words, isn't that an ideally compact and efficient expression?

Quote: mkl654321

But could you state that concept equally clearly in some other way without using more words? In other words, isn't that an ideally compact and efficient expression?

How about "be clear"? :)

Quote: weaselman

How about "be clear"? :)

No, that wouldn't say the same thing. To "eschew" is to avoid something on the basis of moral or practical principles. To "obfuscate" is to confuse or deliberately make unclear. So the best paraphrase of "eschew obfuscation" would be "avoid, on principle, making things unclear or confusing". Considerably more nuanced than simply, "be clear"--and meaning not the opposite of that, but the complement--"don't be unclear."

Just a little trivia here. While we have an English verb for probably every latin verb, the ones we use the most often are based on Old English verbs. For example we tend to say "build" from old English instead of "construct" from Latin. All of the most common verbs which make up over half of the verbs we use in every writing or speech are from Old English or Old Norse (i.e. is, am, want get, give , etc.).

The most commonly used Latin based verb is "use" which has replaced the Old English verb brucan almost completely except in some poetry.

Quote: The Sea

But nay, the thing that caught my gaze:
his sparkling, piercing eyes
that looked with kindness on myself,
yet stern: would brook no lies.

Most common verbs in English language
1.be
2.have
3.do
4.say
5.get
6.make
7.go
8.know
9.take
10.see
11.come
12.think
13.look
14.want
15.give
16.use
17.find
18.tell
19.ask
20.work

The Etymology lesson aside, if you are unsure of slight meanings in words, the Online Etymology Dictionary can sometimes sort out subtle differences.


use (v.)
mid-13c., from O.Fr. user "use, employ, practice," from V.L. *usare "use," frequentative form of pp. stem of L. uti "to use," in Old L. oeti "use, employ, exercise, perform," of unknown origin. Replaced O.E. brucan (see brook (v.)). Used "second-hand" is recorded from 1590s. User is recorded from 1935 in the narcotics sense, 1967 in the computer sense. User-friendly (1977) is said in some sources to have been coined by software designer Harlan Crowder as early as 1972. Verbal phrase used to "formerly did or was" (as in I used to love her) represents a construction attested from c.1300, and common from c.1400, but now surviving only in past tense form. The pronunciation is affected by the t- of to.


utilize
1807, from Fr. utiliser, from It. utilizzare, from utile "usable," from L. utilis "usable," from uti (see use). Utilization is first attested 1847.
Utilize is fast antiquating improve, in the sense of 'turn to account.' [Fitzedward Hall, "Modern English," 1873]


improve
late 15c., "to use to one's profit," from Anglo-Fr. emprouwer "to turn to profit" (late 13c.), from O.Fr. en-, causative prefix, + prou "profit," from L. prode "advantageous" (see proud). Meaning "to raise to a better quality or condition" first recorded 1610s. Phrase improve the occasion retains the etymological sense. Meaning "to turn land to profit" (by clearing it, erecting buildings, etc.) was in Anglo-Fr. (13c.) and was retained in the American colonies.

I recall this old admonition:

"Avoid Latin derivatives. Use brief, terse, Anglo-Saxon monosyllables."



The catch, of course, is that "Anglo-Saxon" is the only non-Latin-derivative in the admonition.

Maldiga, esto hace mi herida de cabeza