If you read a lot of web articles, chances are you have stumbled upon “i.e.” and “e.g.” in these essays. As a matter of fact, chances are you also misinterpreted them as “in example” and “example”.
First of all, “in example” doesn’t exist in English; it’s wrong grammar. You always say “for example”. And “e.g.” is not an abbreviation for the word “example” because the start of the word sounds like “eg”.
“i.e.” is a Latin acronym for “id est”, literally “that is”. You can thus see how wrong it is to think of it as “for example”; i.e. it would not fit if you read the use I just made of it as “in example”.
“e.g.” on the other hand really is “for example”, in Latin “exempli gratia”, literally “for the sake of example”.
