In Defense of "Use"
Good writing (in contrast with mine) is defined by great verbs. Verbs are the essential component in answering "how?". You can't tell a story without the verbs. The sad little world of nouns and adjectives only tells, it never shows.
Which is why we need to fucking bury the word "utilize".
Maybe it's just that I've been free of the corporate-speak haze for too many moons, but nothing gets the hair on the back of my neck to stand up in empathized embarrassment like hearing a smart person say "utilize" when all they needed was a simple "use". It's as though the accreted mental sludge of sitting in meetings causes some sort of malapropism-Tourettes. To my delight, it seems the dictionary on my MacBook agrees with me; from the "utilize" entry:
Because it is a more formal word than use and is often used in contexts (as in business writing) where the ordinary verb "use" would be simpler and more direct, "utilize" may strike readers as pretentious jargon and should therefore be used sparingly.
See! "Used sparingly"! Not effing "utilized sparingly".