Use or Utilize

Nowhere in good writing do utilize and utilization serve a better purpose than use. The former two words, which appear far later in our language (c. 1800 vs. c. 1200), now function as perfect synonyms of use—redundancies that do not improve our language. Perhaps due to their French origin, utilize and utilization are often mistaken as more formal alternatives to use, a mistake even the New Oxford American Dictionary makes. (For the curious, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary does not make this error.) But such an assumption is wrong. Despite the longer words’ popularity in corporate settings—places filled with affectation and a lack of clean usage—nothing suggests that the longer words make writing any more formal. Write as if only use exist.

As Wilson Follett states (as quoted by Bryan A. Garner): “If utilize and utilization were to disappear tomorrow, no writer of the language would be the poorer.”