[funklute]

> e.g. and i.e. both have come to interchangeably and loosely mean "for example"

It seems you live on a completely different planet to me... "i.e." simply does not mean "for example", and no one who has a good, academic level of English would ever think so.

[eagsalazar2]

I'm not saying anything about what I do or don't know about the meaning of i.e. vs e.g., I'm just saying stand in front of any mall in America and poll people as they go in:

(Q1) "Do you, even occasionally, ever use e.g. or i.e. when speaking or writing?" Almost all people will answer yes.

(Q2) "Can you correctly define these abbreviations and explain their correct usage?" 1 in 10 will answer correctly.

(Q3) You (the interviewer), use one or the other in a sentence, ask people to correctly paraphrase your meaning to see if, in spite of their lack of academic understanding, they are still perfectly capable of understanding you. 9 in 10 will answer correctly.

This, almost by definition, represents linguistic evolution. And that is ok. I would go so far as to argue that "academic level of English" should be rephrased as "academic style of English" and that that stye has zero relationship with any notion of "correctness" at all. Telling the 9/10 from Q2 that they are "wrong" is, again, very misguided and pretty jerky honestly.

[funklute]

> Telling the 9/10 from Q2 that they are "wrong" is, again, very misguided and pretty jerky honestly.

I disagree. I do see your point about linguistic evolution. But I don't think it applies here.

In my native tongue, the word for "and" and the word for "to" (the infinitive marker) are very similar. As a result, tons of people mix the two up. But probably not even the most progressive and liberal linguist would agree that this represents linguistic evolution. It is pretty much universally understood to be symptomatic of a poor technical understanding of the language.

I think the same applies to "i.e." vs "e.g.". They are both used predominantly in academic style or level (whichever you prefer) of English. And in that context, their respective meanings are often quite important for understanding the precise details of a text.

I don't think that paraphrasing a text is a good test here btw - even with an A1 or A2 level of English you can get a pretty good rough understanding. Besides, paraphrasing often loses the precise meaning, which I would argue is to answer incorrectly. Logical hierarchies and implications really do matter when it comes to conveying information, and if not everyone understands the subtleties of the language, the go-to response should be "more education is needed" rather than "let's give up and have all words mean the same thing".