Utilize the Proper Usage of Use, or is it Use the Proper Usage of Utilize?

Last week we discovered why words ending with a j sound are spelled –dge. But as with many things in English it is not universal usage. Usage is a good example. Which reminds me of a George Carlin statement (p. 745 in his book 3x Carlin):

I object to the use of usage when it’s used in place of use. There’s nothing wrong with using use; it’s been in use a long time and I’m used to it. It isn’t that usage isn’t useful; I simply have no use for its current usage. The use of usage should be consistent with good usage: I’d prefer to say, “My use of the Internet” rather than “my usage.”….And, as I’m using space on usage, I’ll use some more on utilize.

That is what I so enjoyed about George Carlin – his interest in language. Why do we have three words like use, usage, and utilization that all mean similar things? Are they synonyms or “simonyms”?

Let’s start at the beginning of the words in English. The first word to arrive in English was the noun use, in the early 1200s. It came to English from an Old French word us. The French got it from the Latin word usus, which means custom, skill or habit. It refers to the act or state of being employed or putting into service. (Isn't it interesting how you cannot define a simple word without using more complex words? That question just used the verb form of use.)

Use became a verb within a few years (in the mid-13^th century), from the Old French word user, which came from the Vulgar Latin usare, the “frequentative form of the past participle stem of Latin uti ‘to use,’ in Old Latin oeti ‘use, employ, exercise, perform.” (Thank you, etymonline.com for such a pedantic explanation.) Prior to that time, the Old English would have used the word brucan, from which we have the verb brook. (“I will not brook any disagreement.”) More on that next month.

The next to arrive in English was probably usage. It is a noun that means the customary way of doing something. It arrived in English around 1300 from the Anglo-French and Old French word usage, which also meant custom or habit, but referred not to what can be a singular, one-time way of doing something or employing or putting something into service, but to a custom or habit. So when something has a customary way of happening, we call that a usage. There is a sense of repetition in it that is not in "use" or "utilize."

Utilize was the last to arrive in English. It also is a verb, meaning “to put to use.” But it only arrived in 1807, from the French utiliser, which the French got from the Italian utilizzare, from their word utile, which came from the Latin word utilis, which meant usable. Dictionary.com uses the phrase “turn to profitable account” in defining utilize. There is more specificity and personalization to utilize than to use. The difference being you would use utilize when the act or item is achieving a specific or positive purpose. Otherwise, common usage should be to use use. 

So they are not synonyms. As nouns, use is for one-time occurrence, usage for a habitual occurrence. As verbs use is common, while utilize is for something that is put to productive account. They're "simonyms."