A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
Page 97
You should avoid this usage because people widely regard it as erroneous and you would be flaunting not your vocabulary but your lack of it.
1
flotsam / jetsam
Your colleagues at work may jokingly refer to the flotsam and jetsam in your office but, technically speaking, they would be wrong unless you were truly adrift or sinking. Flotsam in maritime law applies to wreckage or cargo left floating on the sea after a shipwreck. Jetsam applies to cargo or equipment thrown overboard (jettisoned) from a ship in distress and either sunk or washed ashore. The common phrase flotsam and jetsam is now used loosely to describe any objects found floating or washed ashore.
2
follow
You should use as follows (not as follow) regardless of whether the noun that precedes it is singular or plural: The regulations are as follows.
3
foot
Foot and feet have their own rules when they are used in combination with numbers to form expressions for units of measure. You can say a four-foot plank but not a four-feet plank; you can also say a plank four feet (less frequently, four foot) long and a plank four feet six inches long (or four foot six inches long). But when you combine foot with numbers greater than one to refer to simple distance, use only the plural feet: a ledge 20 feet (not foot) away. At that speed, a car moves 88 feet (not foot) in a second.
4
forceful / forcible / forced
Forceful, forcible, and forced have distinct but related meanings. Forceful describes someone or something that possesses or is filled with strength or force: a forceful speaker, a forceful personality. Forceful measures may or may not involve the use of actual physical force. You use forcible, however, for actions carried out by physical force: There had been a forcible entry. The police had to use forcible restraint in order to arrest the suspect. Use forced for an act or a condition brought about by control or an outside influence: a forced smile, a forced landing, forced labor.
5
forego / forgo
If you are foregoing dessert, does that mean you are entering the dining room before it is brought in? The trouble here is that there are two foregos. The verb forgo—without the e—means “to do without” but has as an acceptable variant the spelling forego. Thus you can legitimately forgo or forego dessert. The other forego means “to go before, either in place or time,” as in A bad reputation often foregoes you. This forego always has an e.
6
former / latter
Some people insist that you should use the phrases the former and the latter only to refer to the first of two things and the second of two things, respectively: “But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake, and the former was a lulu and the latter was a fake” (Ernest Lawrence Thayer). It is easy to find violations of this rule in the works of good writers, but since former and latter are comparatives, many readers feel uneasy when the words are used in enumerations of more than two things, just as they would feel uneasy over
