What if I do think that there is a distinction between 'use' and 'utilize' that I would like to make, but I know that just using one of the words or the other would not carry my meaning to the reader clearly. Can you suggest a way around this problem? By the way, I am not desperate; this is a hypothetical.
If you feel "utilize" means "find a way to use as" and you're not sure what your audience knows or thinks, you can say "We used [something] as [something else]" of course.
I argued with a friend once: I said people who know etymology choose words that carry extra information when speaking to people they know will get it. He disagreed. If you need to convey a specific meaning to an unknown audience, you have to figure out how they need to receive it.
Meaning isn't always what people are after. In a business meeting, sometimes people say things like "We utilized resources to optimize workflow," instead of "We asked people to do their jobs better." But that's not how I like to operate.
TL;DR: There's always a plain way to say what you mean.
What if I do think that there is a distinction between 'use' and 'utilize' that I would like to make, but I know that just using one of the words or the other would not carry my meaning to the reader clearly. Can you suggest a way around this problem? By the way, I am not desperate; this is a hypothetical.
If you feel "utilize" means "find a way to use as" and you're not sure what your audience knows or thinks, you can say "We used [something] as [something else]" of course.
I argued with a friend once: I said people who know etymology choose words that carry extra information when speaking to people they know will get it. He disagreed. If you need to convey a specific meaning to an unknown audience, you have to figure out how they need to receive it.
Meaning isn't always what people are after. In a business meeting, sometimes people say things like "We utilized resources to optimize workflow," instead of "We asked people to do their jobs better." But that's not how I like to operate.
TL;DR: There's always a plain way to say what you mean.