You’re writing a status update. You could say “I’ll get the numbers from finance,” but that feels too casual for a work message, so you upgrade it: “I’ll obtain the figures from finance.” It looks more professional on the page. It’s the kind of verb that scored marks in school. Nobody could call it wrong.
Here’s the catch. The formal words that make you sound stiff in business English are usually the ones that feel most professional when you type them. To a US, UK, or Canadian ear, “obtain” doesn’t read as polished. It reads as paperwork. The everyday verb a native colleague reaches for is almost always the short, plain one you talked yourself out of using.
This is the textbook habit, and it’s easy to fall into because every formal verb is correct. Below are eight of the most common ones, what a native ear actually hears when you use them, and the everyday word a native speaker would use instead. The plain version isn’t sloppy. It’s standard business English, and it sounds like a teammate rather than a template.
Why the formal verb reads as textbook, not polished
Formal vocabulary feels safer. It’s what filled the textbooks, it’s what the email templates use, and a longer Latinate verb looks more serious than its short twin. So capable professionals upgrade their verbs in good faith: “use” becomes “utilize,” “start” becomes “commence,” “find out” becomes “ascertain.” On the exam where you learned English, that move earned points.
At a native-speaking workplace, the move backfires. A native reader doesn’t add up your formal verbs as polish. They read tone. A sentence like “We will endeavour to obtain the data and ascertain the cause” doesn’t sound senior. It sounds like an essay, or a legal notice, written by someone who isn’t quite talking to you.
The signal isn’t that you’re wrong. Every one of these words is correct, and your colleague understands you perfectly. The cost is that you sound like a textbook instead of a person. That’s the part that catches fluent speakers off guard, because each formal word felt more correct than its plain version when they chose it.
One thing to settle upfront: the plain verbs below are not casual or sloppy. “Use,” “start,” “get,” and “need” are standard professional English. You’re not trading professionalism for ease. You’re trading starch for clarity.
The eight words, and what to say instead
“Utilize” → “use”
“We can utilize the new dashboard for this.” → “We can use the new dashboard for this.”
“Utilize” almost never adds anything over “use.” There’s a narrow technical sense (putting a resource to good use), but in everyday work writing it’s padding, and native speakers read it that way. “We can use the new dashboard” sounds like a person talking. “Utilize” sounds like a policy document. When the plain word means the same thing, the plain word wins.
“Commence” → “start” or “kick off”
“We’ll commence the rollout on Monday.” → “We’ll start the rollout on Monday.” / “We’ll kick off the rollout on Monday.”
“Commence” belongs to ceremonies, court dates, and formal notices. Used for a project, it sounds oddly grand. “Start” is the neutral default, and “kick off” is the warmer, more colloquial option a colleague actually says about a launch. Either one places you in the room with the team instead of reading a proclamation to it.
“Ascertain” → “find out”
“I’ll ascertain the root cause and report back.” → “I’ll find out what caused it and report back.”
“Ascertain” sounds like a line from an investigation report. The action behind it is ordinary: you’re going to find out what happened. “I’ll find out what caused it” says exactly that and keeps you sounding human. Save the formal register for the rare moment you genuinely need it, which a Slack message about a bug is not.
“Endeavour” → “try” or “aim to”
“We will endeavour to deliver by Friday.” → “We’ll try to deliver by Friday.” / “We’ll aim to deliver by Friday.”
“Endeavour” reads like a corporate disclaimer, the kind of word that hedges a promise so it can’t be held against you. To a native ear it adds distance, not commitment. “We’ll try to deliver by Friday” is honest and direct, and “We’ll aim to deliver by Friday” is a touch firmer if you want it. Neither one makes you sound like terms and conditions.
“Assist” → “help”
“Please let me know if I can assist.” → “Let me know if I can help.”
“Assist” is what a help desk does, or what the ticketing system says it’s doing. When you’re offering support to a colleague, you want warmth, and “help” is the warmer, more personal word. “Let me know if I can help” sounds like you mean it. “Let me know if I can assist” sounds like an auto-reply. The tone matters most exactly when you’re trying to be kind.
“Require” → “need”
“This task will require two engineers.” → “This task needs two engineers.”
“Require” sounds like a spec sheet or an entry form. It’s not wrong, but it puts a layer of formality between you and a simple fact. “This task needs two engineers” states the same thing the plain way a native speaker would say it out loud. In scoping and resourcing, where you’re already asking for something, the direct verb reads as clear rather than demanding.
“Obtain” → “get”
“I’ll obtain the figures from finance.” → “I’ll get the figures from finance.”
“Obtain” is paperwork English. “Get” is the verb a native colleague uses for the exact same action, and nobody reads it as careless. The instinct to avoid “get” because it feels too plain is the instinct to watch: in most work sentences it’s the natural choice, and reaching past it for “obtain” is what makes the line sound like a form.
“Please advise” → “let me know”
“The build is broken. Please advise.” → “The build is broken. Let me know how you’d like to handle it.”
“Please advise” is the one that does real damage. It’s grammatically fine, but to a US or UK reader it lands as cold and slightly curt, the verbal equivalent of crossing your arms. “Let me know how you’d like to handle it” asks the same question while sounding like a person who’s still on the same side as you. When something’s gone wrong, that difference in tone carries weight.
How this shows up in a normal week
These words surface in the most ordinary writing, which is why they slip past you. You’re posting a standup update, replying to a request for help, announcing a project kickoff, filing a bug report, pulling data from another team. Each time, the formal verb feels more appropriate for a work channel than its plain twin. It’s the professional thing to reach for.
The trouble is they cluster. One formal verb on its own is harmless. But a single message can carry three or four (“We will endeavour to utilize the data and ascertain the cause”), and now the reader is wading through textbook English to find what you actually mean. By the time they get there, the tone has done its work. You sound like a document, even though you’re a teammate.
The fix is rarely to dumb anything down. It’s to trust that the plain verb is professional enough, because it is. When you stop upgrading “use” to “utilize” out of caution, the sentence relaxes into something a native speaker would have written, and it still reads as competent.
Spotting it in your own writing
Before you send, scan for the long Latinate verbs: “utilize,” “commence,” “ascertain,” “endeavour,” “obtain,” “require.” For each one, ask whether the short word means the same thing. Almost always it does, and almost always it sounds more like you. “Please advise” gets its own check: if a sentence ends on it, rewrite the ask as a plain “let me know…” and the whole message warms up.
You don’t have to ban formal vocabulary. There are moments — a legal notice, a formal announcement, a genuinely ceremonial email — where “commence” or “require” fits. The goal isn’t to sound blunt. It’s to stop sounding like a textbook when you’re writing to a colleague. Once you can hear the difference between a word that adds precision and one that only adds distance, the choice gets easy.
This is exactly the kind of register calibration FluentSphere is built to train: real workplace scenarios where you practice the everyday version until it’s the one that comes out first. Try FluentSphere — link in bio.