I often forget, which is sad because I took three years of Latin in high school.
i.e. = id est, “that is”
e.g. = exempli grati, “for the sake of example”
“Tim W”’s explanation on Mother Tongue Annoyances is more entertaining than mine, especially the part where he explains why you shouldn’t use either in spoken English:
I’m not sure about you, but whenever I listen to a man or woman give a talk and they say something like “Italian Renaissance painters, eye-eee Donatello and Alberti..”, I instantly feel a queasiness in my viscera that mandates my hasty exit from the venue. As we’ll soon learn, this example speaker (a) should be using e.g. instead of i.e.; and (b) he or she should never commit this speech usage atrocity in the first place. This practice (in my humble or not-so-humble opinion) is alternatively ignorant or pedantic
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I turned in a math homework assignment the other day (which is juvenile enough!), and the guy who graded it actually took the time to cross out e.g. and write i.e. — in red pen! I felt like a ten year old, being corrected on my word usage in a math paper. The worst part is I think I am actually older than the postdoc grading me. Ugh.