Usage tip: imply vs. infer

It has been some time since Word-wise addressed any commonly confused words. Let's remedy that!

imply (v.) to suggest; to indirectly hint
ex: Calling Jean's fender-bender a "crash" seemed to imply what James thought about who was at fault.
infer (v.) to conclude or surmise; to pick up on a hint
ex: There's no ancillary material with the workbook; from that, the committee inferred that the program is simple to use.

While imply and infer aren't mixed up nearly as frequently as its/it's or there/their/they're, you can see where that occasional confusion comes from. They so often occur together, they are already linked in our minds. In any conversation where one person implies, another person doesn't get the whole message unless he infers. Together these verbs describe two opposite ends of a subtle subtext communication.

And so, because they are closely related, they can easily be confused. But they are not interchangeable, and they need attention when used incorrectly. In a case like this, I think the easiest way to keep the words straight when there's no dictionary handy is to think through the meanings of other words that come from them. For example, the noun form of imply is implication; the verb infer, on the other hand, becomes inference--and these derived words are far less often confused. Use them to check your use of the verbs.

That's one example of how to remember the difference, and it works for any number of other word pairs also. But this is nowhere near the only way to "check your work" even when references are unavailable. Readers, what is your favorite memory trick for keeping common usage problems like imply and infer straight? And beyond questions of usage, what other mnemonics or checking practices do you find useful for keeping your English on the straight and narrow?