Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

'Forgive' and 'forget', especially when uttered in one breath the way they often are, seem to form in the mind a perfect and beautiful picture of symmetry: the 'for' a mirror in the middle reflecting the 2 opposing actions.

Alas there could hardly be a better example of deceptive appearance, because the 2 'for's in fact sprung from completely different roots to mean completely different things, so that while the one enhances and ennobles its 'give,' the other is designed to diminish its 'get' to nil and void.

And yet as one looks back at the pair together making up that phrase, to see if there is any difference between before and after the illusory esthetic was unmasked as such, there seems none- the way the 2 still echo nicely off each other to teach the exact same truth as before, it's as though no scandal had been perpetrated at all.