(from my e-book, "Speak and Write Like a Native: 110 Things You Need to Know About English")
61) “Look Over” and “Overlook” – ESL students often say overlook when they mean to say look over. These have opposite meanings: look over means to review or examine something, and overlook means to fail to see something or to choose not to see something:
“Can you look over these sales figures?”
“Let me look over the report before our meeting.”
“How could you have overlooked such an important deadline?”
“It was a costly mistake, Adam, but I'll overlook it this one time.”
A mnemonic:
The first word in look over is look: You are looking, seeing, examining closely.
Overlook begins with over: You are far above, unable to see details.
The popular American song from the 1920s, “I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover” played upon these words and may help you to remember the difference:
I'm looking over a four-leaf clover
That I overlooked before
One leaf is sunshine, the second is rain
Third is the roses that grow in the lane
No need explaining, the one remaining
Is somebody I adore
I'm looking over a four-leaf clover
That I overlooked before
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