Certain sets of words in the English language tend to confuse writers. I have found the following to be among them:
FORGO / FOREGO
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 you 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 most 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 forgo / forego in the present tense form and are totally clueless as to which way to go, I’d recommend forgoing that e in the middle and just sticking with the less pretentious forgo. It will work almost every time.
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