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7 Words You’re Probably Misusing
Spoiler alert: “utilize” is one of them
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been spending a little bit too much time on Tiktok. And I’ve noticed something.
To clarify, I’m not always a lazy social media doomscroller, but I’m between jobs right now and I don’t begin my new job for another week, so in the meantime, I’ve been occupying my time with less-than-healthy habits. Like mindless scrolls.
It hasn’t been for nothing, though. If there’s anything this extra Tiktok time has taught me, it’s that people’s vocabularies are kind of lacking. I’ve seen it on videos and captions and in people’s subtitles and basically everywhere.
I don’t mean “lacking” in the sense that they don’t have a diverse enough vocabulary, or that they use boring words to describe all of their daily drama. By “lacking,” I mean that a lot of these people seem to be misusing words. They treat two similar words as if they’re interchangeable — when really, the meanings could not be more different.
Before you say anything, I’m not really one to judge, and I know that. I’m constantly working on improving my vocabulary — more by way of adding new words to it because occasionally I feel that it gets a little dull. But I have always been pretty specific about using words in the appropriate context, so I…
