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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab
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To: Dayuhan who wrote (1396)8/19/1998 7:37:00 AM
From: Rambi   of 4711
 
Well, hi Steve!
An impressive nitpicking debut. I don't think this word has ever been discussed.
I went to my Fowler's and learned that:
In virtually all contexts where one or the other word is needed to cover the sense 'to bring into service' use is the more satisfactory word. But a case can be made out for utilize when the required sense is 'to make practical use of, to turn to account'.
The boundary is nevertheless a murky one....

So your instincts seem correct. Although that was a pretty murky explanation, if you ask me..

And isn't nitpicking a wonderfully disgusting and accurate word? Once in 1986- the incident remains clear in my memory, so traumatic was it-there was a lice infestation in CW's kindergarten class. It was a maternally humiliating moment when we got a note home informing us that he had them. Most of the class had them. And kept getting them. They couldn't figure out the source. Moms were eying each other suspiciously and covertly trying to inspect their child's friends' heads. Vicious accusations flew behind backs; it got ugly.
I attacked CW with a vengeance; no nits would escape me. He has very thick hair and day after day we sat outside and I combed his poor scalp. Finally I gave up and had his head shaved. Halfway through, I felt guilty and confessed to the barber that he was touching a child with a nitty head. His lip curled but he finished. We never went back there.
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