At supper last night, I engaged in discussion with a woman who is vexed by those who say "utilize" when the simpler verb "use" would seem to suffice. I suggested that this is a valid complaint only if "utilize" is a perfect synonym for "use" and vice versa. And she said, "Well, isn't it?"

...if "utilize" is a perfect synonym for "use" and vice versa. And she asked, "Well, isn't it?"
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The OED confirms my suspicion. Use means just to make use of whereas utilize means to make practical use of or use effectively. So I suppose you could use a hammer and just sort of whack away but if you utilized a hammer you would, perhaps, drive a nail effectively. Make sense?
Excuse me , my imagination has just run riot
wow

Just throwing this out there, haven`t looked it up so nobody grumble at me if I am wrong.

It might stem from the French. We say something is utile to say it is useful. We also only use the verb utilise (in all its myriad tenses that we have to remember from birth).

Too bad belMarduk logged out so quickly. I have a hazy recollection of a French word for tool "util" . So to me " to utilize" is to use a tool real or figurative, and is thus less inclusive than "use".

I finally found French dictionary. Outil = tool

wwh comments: So to me " to utilize" is to use a tool real or figurative, and is thus less inclusive than "use".

We make the same distinction in Spanish. "Usar" is the more general "use" verb, with a small number of derivative words. "Utilizar", on the other hand, has connotations of using something instrumentally. It has derivatives such as "útil" (adj. "useful" and n. "tool"), "utilización" (n. "instrumental use"), "utilidad" (n. the level of practicality in the use of something), "utilero" (n. a person who looks after and carries certain tools for others, such as sports equipment for sportspeople, or capote and banderillas for the torero).


(Aenigma thinks the torero is a Tory)
(It also thinks it itself is Aeolus)

All Tories are John Bulls, and bulls hate and fear toreros. There used to be a cosmetic preparation "Oil of Ole" I wondered if torero perspiration were an ingredient.
And Aenigma must be a big bag of wind.

If you take, by way of analogy, the verb fertilize (= make fertile) or civilize(..), it becomes plausible that utilize besides its overlap with use, has the special connotation of making useful. This is confirmed by MW: (utilize) "..may suggest the discovery of a new, profitable, or practical use for something <an old wooden bucket utilized as a planter>."

Furthermore, use has acquired in the course of history, I think, a somewhat mixed aura. So if you want to employ a cleaner word, take utilize until further notice ...

I often find that "jargon" has a place in the right context: a general English word like 'use' has too many connotations, and the longer word is more precisely suited to one area.

But I have never found a use for 'utilize': never been writing a sentence when 'use' doesn't have the same meaning, just as clearly, and without ambiguity.

'Utilize' normally (i.e. in the contexts where you actually come across it) means the same as 'use', not 'use efficiently'. I haven't even been able to invent any situations where it expresses anything better.

It and 'commence' go in a bin I have for useless words.

Not a nice word, I'd agree though I do use it occasionally where a certain ponderous effect seems called for. But, while we're on the subject, why are US graduation ceremonies called commencements?

Bingley

However, when one considers the past tense, one might purchase a "used" car, not a "utilized" car. To avoid the connotation of something "used up" most sellers now substitute the term "previously owned or driven"

Perhaps the usage of commencement is to refer to the beginning of a new stage of ones life after the years spent learning and then forgetting much of what was taught for all those years after kindergarten. That reminds me of a poem or song i once learned:
Plato, Euripides, Socrates, Diogenes,
Were known for their Philosophy.
The more you study, the more you know,
The more you know, the more you forget,
The more you forget, the less you know,
So, why study?

>one might purchase a "used" car, not a "utilized" car

The other word we use is second-hand as in "would you buy a second-hand car from that man?!" I only thought about the strangeness of the word when a friend said that she wouldn't buy a "second hand house", a term I have never heard used (except, maybe, in the context of a brand new house which has been sold very soon after it is built). We don't say a "used" house either, maybe because houses don't get "used up".

To avoid the connotation of something "used up" most sellers now substitute the term "previously owned or driven"

...or pre-loved.

one might purchase a "used" car, not a "utilized" car

Perhaps because some motorists have not mastered driving skills as effectively as others?
wow