Comments on: Forgo or Forego? https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/ English Translation from German, Spanish, and Catalan; English Editing and Writing Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:30:16 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.2 By: Sarah rice https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-746 Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:30:16 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-746 Foregone conclusion explains it toe. Forego means go before leaving forgo
To mean something given up.

]]> By: Casey https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-709 Fri, 13 May 2011 21:54:54 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-709 That one should be forgo, Lilith! It’s got to be!

]]> By: lilith https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-708 Fri, 13 May 2011 21:27:02 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-708 Oops, sorry, I meant “foregoing the trip.” See what you’ve started? 😀

]]> By: lilith https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-707 Fri, 13 May 2011 21:26:08 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-707 Thank you for the clarification, everybody. I ALWAYS forget…I’m still not sure if I should use “forego” in the sense of “forgoing the trip” though.

]]> By: denise https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-687 Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:10:11 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-687 Crystal clear now – great mnemonic device. Thanks!

]]> By: sparkle https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-641 Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:10:16 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-641 Thanks for this post. I’ve been searching the web for an answer. Spelling is usually a foregone conclusion for me, but this time I was stumped.
😀

]]> By: Casey https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-480 Wed, 28 May 2008 21:23:51 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-480 Hi Daniel, thanks for your comment. I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you on your variance point: while forego is a listed variant of forgo, the reverse is not true. You could say that the small difference in spelling might mean that the two will one day converge into one word with both meanings, but that clearly hasn’t happened yet since they are not interchangeable. Which is why I’ll be using forgo when I’m giving up something, and forego when it’s just coming first.

And yes, that sentence started with which. Rules are relative. Please do keep me posted if you use any of my entries in your lesson plans!

]]> By: Daniel https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-479 Wed, 28 May 2008 11:42:42 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-479 After checking with various online dictionaries, I’m confident that forgo and forego are simply variants. And since English is such a consistent and systematic language, I think we can afford to forego overwrought distinctions between the two and simply go with whatever convention we’re familiar with. And yes, I ended with a preposition. Because I’ve been teaching ESL all day and now all I want to do is break rules.

]]> By: Casey https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-315 Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:18:59 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-315 Funny you should mention verbieten, skg046–it’s the one that always slips my mind in German (I always want to say vor-)! Your definition of for- as an intensifier is much easier to remember than the definition given in Random House. Thanks for that.

]]> By: skg046 https://belletra.com/editor-at-large/forgo-or-forego/#comment-314 Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:23:13 +0000 http://belletra.com/?p=83#comment-314 The for- in “forgo” is akin to the intensifying sense of completion that ver- has in various German words. Vergangenheit, verstehen, Verlangen, verbieten…. Actually, the last one might help to reinforce your mnemonic, since it has an obvious English analogue that hardly anyone would misspell.

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