If you use "utilize" in work emails rather than "use" I'm making fun of you behind your back

@JimboSaturn Exactly. Writing clearly is much harder than elaborate nonsense.

@CountScrofula I agree, less is more. Simple, concise, impactful, frugal choice of words.

@JimboSaturn Good essay on this:

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/3

@CountScrofula I have read that! Great essay! I have actually seen some of the things he hates at my workplace. My favourite is to take a verb like "change" and then change it into a noun and then have to add another verb like:

affect a change.

@JimboSaturn I don't know why, but many middle-ranking managers love waffle:

"We have identified a requirement to think outside the box in the formulation of our new mission-statement going forward."

Translation: "We need write a new mission-statement."

Reality: "No-one needs a mission-statement" .... whatever that is.

Commonly seen on the back doors of large lorries: ".... [i]Suppliers of Logistics Solutions[/i]".
No you aren't. You are carriers.

The mission-statement, a 1990s business fad, can be rather back-handed:

"We strive to be a world-class supplier of xxx-industry solutions to our clients".
This says: "We are trying to be good at our work, but matching which class in which world anyway, and why do we assume all our customers have problems too difficult for them to solve"?


Perhaps they think it clever.


I think it semi-illiterate.

@ArishMell The less they know the more they babble.

@JimboSaturn EXACTLY. Why would you choose “utilize” instead of “use?” And then abbreviate UR.

Madness, I tell you.

@ArishMell There IS a need for mission statements. You need one to get grants.

@Mamapolo2016 Why would you spell utilise with a Z? Why does anyone uze that kind of spelling?

@Really American dialect, and one Microsoft tries to enforce.

@Really In north american they use z.

@Really Being Canadian I switch between ise and ize regularly.

@CountScrofula I usually use British spellings. I was actually unaware the spell it with an s

@JimboSaturn Oh, yes. We all know people don’t listen. Why give them more of a word salad to burrow through?

For the purpose of communication, clear. Concise. Direct. This doesn’t just LOOK a lot better, unless your superiors are devoted wonks, it’s far more efficient, faster to read, faster to understand.