Certain sets of words in the English language tend to confuse people. I have found the following to be among them:
FOREGO / FORGO
The more commonly used of these words, forgo, means do without. The word forego, on the other hand, means precede, or go before. It may help to remember the latter by thinking of the word before, which also includes the syllable fore with that e tacked onto the end.
Akira will have to forgo breakfast this morning since he is running late for the meeting.
A number of speeches will forego the council’s vote, but it remains to be seen which argument will have the most influence.
As you can guess by the above example, the word forego is seldom used in general conversation where precede will more likely take its place. The most common usage of a form of the verb to forego in conversational English is probably the phrase foregone conclusion. So if you need to use forego / forgo in the present tense form and are totally clueless as to which way to go, I’d recommend you forgo that e in the middle and just stick with the less pretentious forgo. Most of the time it will work just fine.
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