Please, please, please!
So, now that I'm officially an HR profeshunal, I can say this with full authority: do not use the word 'utilize' anywhere, ever. Not in your cover letter, not in the objective on your resume, not EVER. It's horrible. Just use the word use. (If I said, 'just utilize the word use', that would sound awful, wouldn't it? Yes. Yes it would.)
posted by walkinhomefromthethriftstore at 2:20 PM
4 Comments:
I have heard otherwise reasonably minded editor try to argue for one situation in which "utilize" is apt. If you're using something for a purpose other than the one for which it was designed, they say, then "utilize" is apt. You would use Word to create a document; you would utilize Word to lay out your magazine.
In response, I utilize my head to slam it against the wall.
what about "usilize"? you know, when i want to sound fancy.
srsly, from The American Heritage Dictionary:
"USAGE NOTE 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."
Um, usilize works for me. Usilize!
i'll usilize this comment box to make my comment on usilization!
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