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

elude/allude
Your meaning eludes me. I do not understand to what you are alluding .
farther/further
Another  one  where  the  difference  is  becoming  blurred,  but  generally  speaking
farther relates to a physical distance, further to metaphorical distance.
Before we travel any farther , let’s have a further look at the map.
Before we take this argument any further , how much farther is it to the hotel?
Useful mnemonic: FAR ther is about how FAR .
fortuitous/fortunate
Fortuitous means ‘happening by chance’, but not necessarily a fortunate chance.
forward/foreword
Useful mnemonic:
forw A rd means to A dvance.

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foreword: the WORD s that come be FORE the main text.
hear/here
Useful mnemonics:
One h EAR s with one’s EAR s.
I want HER to come HER e.
hanged/hung
Pictures or meat are hung ; criminals used to be hanged .
imply/infer
Speakers imply something by hinting at it; listeners infer something based on the
information they hear.
I infer from your tone that you are angry with me.
I didn’t mean to imply that.
lay/lie/laid
You lie in bed but lay the table, or lay the book on the table or (if you are a hen)
lay an egg.
In the past tense, you lay in bed all day yesterday, but you laid the  table  or  the
book or the egg.
So lie is the present tense of an intransitive verb
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that means ‘to put oneself or
to remain in a more or less horizontal position’. The present participle is lying  ,
the past tense is lay and past participle lain .
Lay  is  the  present  tense  of  a  transitive  verb  whose  basic  meaning  is  ‘to  place
something in a more or less horizontal position’, the present participle is laying,
the past tense and past participle laid .
In the sense of telling an untruth, the forms are lie, lying and lied .
And the concept of an easy lay has nothing to do with hens.
lend/loan
Lend is a verb, loan is normally a noun.
If she asks me for a loan , I will lend her the money.

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