My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

Useful mnemonic:
People will gr OAN if you ask them to l OAN .
People will s END if you ask them to l END .
Though increasingly loan is used as a verb: The bank will loan you the money if
you have enough security. Not everybody likes this, but it’s in the dictionaries.
less/fewer
Ah, the scourge of supermarket sign-writers.
†12
Less means ‘not as much’.
Fewer means ‘not as many’ .
Or, if you prefer, fewer is used to denote things that can be counted and less  to
describe things that can’t.
Never refer to less people . People should stand up and be counted!
loose/lose
Count the o  s  and  remember:  if  I  lose  any  more  weight,  my  clothes  will  be  too
loose .
older/elder
An  elder  is  a  tribesman  or  a  tree.  As  an  adjective,  it  means  older  ,  but  it  is
sometimes used to denote respect: an elder statesman or even my elder sister may
be assumed to have attained a certain amount of wisdom.
Older  just  means  ‘more  old’,  the  way  you  sometimes  feel  in  the  morning,  or
when you are talking to someone who’s never heard of Alvin Stardust.