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@maya_b
How would you characterize the use / utilize distinction?

@inthehands
you "use" something for its designed/intended purpose eg you use socks to cover and keep your feet warm.

"utilizing" something is when you deploy that something in a way other than its design/intended manner eg. you utilize a sock as your bank and keep all your money stashed in it.

now think of all the biz speak that instantly becomes absurd.

"utilize" is for atypical deployments of something but is often used when "use" doesn't have enough syllables to sound interesting.

@maya_b
Interesting! Your distinction is close to how I think of use vs •leverage•. This usage note from the American Heritage is closer to how I think of “utilize.” A spectrum of understanding here, it seems!

@inthehands leveraging your socks as a safety deposit box

@maya_b
Technically correct, yet so horribly wrong

@maya_b New data point: I posed use vs utilize to my wife last night (who is a word nerd), and she thought it was fuzzy and ventured a distinction very similar to yours! But when I gave her the AHD’s example of “unable to use / utilize the new computers,” she understood it as the dictionary posited. She had both distinctions in mind. Maybe a word that’s undergoing active change? Exciting!

@inthehands The computer example has been bugging me as there's more to a computer than simply the hardware.

Generalised to tool does job then you can just as easily say the same thing with hammers teaching cabinet making. Is it that someone can't use a hammer to teach cabinet making, or that the hammer can't, with some weird reciprocating friction rig, cut through a piece of material.

without programming skill, or educational software, a teacher could fail both the use/utilize scenarios

@inthehands likewise cabinet making lessons may fail because there's no skill to use the hammer, or that the hammer isn't appropriate as it is for the task.

or generally tool vs task has multiple failure mode independant of nuanced use/utilise examples