Lose vs Loose

[danimich1]

Not trying to be rude. But thought a spelling lesson wouldn't hurt.

Lose vs Loose

A lot of people are mixing up lose and loose. In particular, a lot of people are writing loose when they really mean lose. Here are the definitions of the two words from my Penguin dictionary:

loose [lOOs] adj not fastened or pre-packed; not tied up or confined; able to move freely; not tight, not firmly fixed; not close-fitting; careless, inaccurate, vague; dissolute, immoral; not closely woven; flabby; (of bowels) inclined to diarrhoea; l. box stable or van in which an animal can move about; at a l. end uncertain what to do next; unoccupied ~ loose adv in a loose way; play fast and l. behave rashly or unscupulously ~ loose n release; on the l. free from restraint; on a spree; ~ loose v/t untie, undo; release from confinement or constraint, set free; detatch; fire (gun); shoot (arrow); (eccles) absolve.

lose (p/t and p/part lost) [lOOz] v/t and i no longer have; be deprived of by accident or misfortune; mislay, fail to find; fail to get or win; be too late for; be bereaved of; waste; be defeated or beaten; suffer loss, become worse off; fail to hear, see or understand; cause or allow to perish; (of clock or watch) go too slowly; (refl) miss the right path; become absorbed in; l. one's head become flustered, panic; l. one's temper grow angry; l. one's way fail to find the right path; l. out (US) be defeated after a struggle.

Examples:

This knot is too loose.
Please do not lose my book.
I had better not lose that file.
One way to remember the difference between the two words is to think that "lose has lost an 'o'".

Ross Williams ([e-mail])
24 January 2002

Revised 10 September 2002.

Note: The copyright notice below does not include the quotes above.

Home   RossHome   Copyright © Ross Williams 2001-2002. All rights reserved.

[InsultComicDog]

1. I'm loost

[Science Geek]

63. Lose the Kraken!

He's not much fun.

The whole lose/loose thing gets ironically delicious as soon as someone calls someone else a 'looser'.

[NMDemDist2]

2. KICKED!!

it's one of my pet peeves. also 'cain' v cane was recently spotted here.

[Voice for Peace]

51. "The election is ours to lose" or "the election is too loose" or "The election is ours, Toulouse"

[barnabas63]

3. Thank you..

...misspellings can really change meaning. It's worth noting.

[intaglio]

4. To which I respond Ghoti

courtesy of G B Shaw

[Bucky]

8. Do you lagh your ghoti in newspaper?

Yeah, go figure "lagh" out.

[Iggo]

60. Context tells me it's "wrap"...

...as in a newspaper is fish wrap, but I can't figure out how to get from a to b.

[Bucky]

65. L as in Colonel, GH as in Hiccough

The A is just an A

[Iggo]

69. Nice!

[ailsagirl]

46. ghoti = fish

[Bucky]

5. Your right. To many peopel make this mistake and its greating on my nerves.

[2pooped2pop]

15. lol

thanks for that. No one else saw it? Or seen it? lol

[Voice for Peace]

52. I seen it. nt

[cloudbase]

6. Next up,

apostrophe's!

[justiceischeap]

9. I suck at apostrophes. nt

[polmaven]

38. apostrophe's what?

[Voice for Peace]

53. It's the plural apostrophe that boggles, it's inconsistencies and horses' asses.

But what about the opastrophies?

http://www.chacha.com/question/is-there-an-opastrophy-in-happy-valentines-day

[hobbit709]

7. The one I hate is lightening instead of lightning.

[demwing]

36. I got into an argument with a web site client over this exact error

She wrote that her AC units were not covered by lightening strikes.

I corrected the word, and ran it online.

She changed it, and wrote me a smug letter, offering the advice that I should reduce my spelling errors if I wanted to make a buck in web design.

I corrected the spelling again, and wrote back that while I appreciated her comments, the correct spelling was, in fact, lightning.

She insisted "lightening" was a real word. It is a word, I wrote, it's just not the word, and I photocopied a page from a dictionary, with both words highlighted.

I did not hear back from her until I received my check, with a brief "thanks for your services" pink slip. No more work from that client. Moron...

[RebelOne]

10. I am so glad you posted this.

People not knowing the difference between lose and loose drives me crazy, but I do not correct them. I am a former copy editor for 30 outdoor magazines. Even some of the editors did not know that difference or the correct usage of it's or its. That's why when I was laid off that I knew that the magazines were in trouble.

[prairierose]

11. For those who have problems with usage errors.....

here is a website that is very helpful. His explanations are very easy to understand and help you remember how to use the words correctly.

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

[Arkansas Granny]

12. Which reminds me of a homemade tattoo that a former neighbor had.

Born too loose.

[Mnemosyne]

16. No!

[notadmblnd]

13. I herd it usually happens when people our tired.

Or when a heard of elephants run across are yards.

[2pooped2pop]

14. terrific, someone else here just to grade papers? n/t

Really?

[CTyankee]

32. Me. I teach ESOL. I'm tough and old school.

My Intermediate and Advanced Chinese students have PERFECT spelling of English words. It always worries me that they come to my classes (which are free as I am a Literacy Volunteer) as part of their effort to "eat our lunch"...and judging by the way we treat people who want to insist on literacy in our own language, maybe we deserve such a fate...

[2pooped2pop]

35. well, since I'm not in school, I prefer not to have my papers graded.

Nothing against teachers. Just against people who feel it is necessary to point out errors on a board of adults. It's embarrassing and demeaning to the posters. Most errors are errors of being rushed, etc. Most of them are simple to figure out without pointing out the spinach in the teeth, so to speak.

So some have a pet peeve of other people's grammar errors. Mine is people pointing out other peoples grammar errors. (That and newbie troll calling.)

[CTyankee]

37. well, nobody is naming names here. We're just making a point about literacy in our mother tongue.

I think we have a noble language. I am not against all change, but basic meanings are being lost and that is different from "modernizing" a language. When we can't understand each other in our written language, what does that say about the state of our civilization?

[Homer Wells]

17. Those sort of mis-spellings get under my skin too

For me it is "marshall law" when the phrase is "martial law"!!

[MiniMe]

18. My pet peeve is there, they're, and their

Don't know why that one drives me crazy, but it does. But the lose/loose I have been seeing more frequently lately.

[ananda]

19. And how about lead v. led.

LED is the past tense of the verb TO LEAD.

[dixiegrrrrl]

42. and "rein" vs. "reign"

I see the phrase .." reign in " something when "rein" should have been used, in newspapers, like the NYTimes.

[Science Geek]

59. Write the word "misled" on a card then ask people to pronounce it...

...it's interesting. Our English class did this in our Junior year. With an all adult sample, our class found that 87 out of 100 people did not correctly pronounce the word on the first try.

[Quixote1818]

20. Mostly people with learning disabilities likely. nt

Last edited Sat Nov 10, 2012, 11:29 PM - Edit history (1)

[cherish44]

21. Loose for lose is never going away, neither is using 's for an s for plurals

It just doesn't sink in with some people.

[onenote]

22. Good luck with this

Really, I wish you well. I've tried pointing out when people misuse loose but it was becoming a full time job.

[Science Geek]

23. A few to add...

ad = advertisement
add = addition

alot = is not a word!
a lot = many

noone = is not a word!
no one = nobody

affect = http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affect
effect = http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/effect

insure = http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/insure
ensure = http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ensure
assure = http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assure

flout = disregard
flaunt = show off

capital = a city, or wealth
capitol = a building where lawmakers meet

lay = Lay is a transitive verb meaning to put or place. Its principal parts are lay, laid.
I will lay the keys on the table. I've laid the keys on the table. Chickens lay eggs.

lie = Lie is an intransitive verb meaning to recline or rest on a surface. Its principal parts are lie, lay, lain.
When I'm tired, I lie in bed. He's lain in bed all day.

toward = NEVER put an S on the end of this word!
anyway = NEVER put an S on the end of this word!

Some others involving compound words:

I will give away 3 items in the prize giveaway.
I will use the setup utility to set up the program.

[notadmblnd]

25. irregardless

that's one almost no one catches.

[kath]

39. You forgot a very common one - advice vs advise

advice is a noun, advise a verb

ADVICE is what you give someone when you ADVISE them.

[Whovian]

24. I'm an English Major and have been corrected on this in the past. I think it comes from faulty

teaching methods telling us oo as in MOO. Another bugaboo is the old I before E except after C mantra that I learned as a kid that makes me thankful for today's spell check programs.

Now if my browser would include http://www.grammarly.com/ I would sound so much more intelligent.

[struggle4progress]

26. also "Lou's" and "loos" are easy to confuse

[rateyes]

27. Grammar is the difference

between feeling you're nuts and feeling your nuts.

[coalition_unwilling]

44. Haha! Not quite a DUzY but very, very close! Thanks! - n/t

[jberryhill]

28. Their doing that alot

[MANative]

29. This is a topic upon which I could rant for weeks on end.

But I won't; I'll just do the short version.

I serve as a volunteer editor for an amateur writers' website and correct this kind of error day in and day out. I even started writing a weekly tips column to cover some of the most egregious errors which writers were making over and over again, even after having been corrected (with detailed explanations) multiple times for the same mistake. I know that there are some people who have real learning disabilities which make these rules difficult to learn, but there are many for whom the constant errors are the result of intellectual laziness and lack of attention to detail. Apart from incorrect use of commas and semicolons, the most common errors are homonym/homophone word choice screw-ups. Drives me up a tree when people won't do the simple task of looking things up for correct usage when they are unsure. Proofreading is your readers' best friend.

Here's a great resource for writing and punctuation information: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

[cherokeeprogressive]

30. For some, using proper spelling and grammar is a hard road to hoe... n/t

[demwing]

31. The problem is "choose"

People spell things phonetically. They want to spell lose, they know it rhymes with choose, so they spell the words the same way.

So...why don't we pronounce lose like chose? Or hose? Or nose? Or pose? Or rose?

Who knows?

[Zoeisright]

33. THANK you!

I also hate "your" when people mean "you are", "swap out" when they mean "substitute", and "went missing" when they mean "disappeared." And "impact" as a verb.

And I hate those lazy contractions "must've", "should've", "might've", etc. I actually saw "shouldn't've" in a published book! And it wasn't in a conversation, where it MIGHT HAVE been correct.

[CTyankee]

40. Agree with your "your" example, but I don't really think the others are so bad. I actually like

"went missing" and I don't mind "impact" as a verb.

My reasoning is that if a word's usage actually improves understanding of what is being said, then perhaps it has a place in our written language. What, after all, is the purpose of written language if not to convey meaning?

The misspellings that confuse meaning is what I am against.

[Science Geek]

50. Don't get me stated on...

gifting and tasking.

I gifted the Red Cross $10.00. Please, just say 'gave'.

I tasked Robert with watering the plants. Ugh! Please, kill me now.

"Woke/wake up" bothers me too.

I woke. -or- I awoke. I woke him. He woke. When did you wake? Are all perfect, and don't risk a terminal preposition (itself an oxymoron).

"Where are you at?" Apparently, I'm in some English hell!
"Where are you?" Asks exactly the same question without an unnecessary and misplaced preposition.

[CTyankee]

34. I think we may eventually lose our 3rd person singular in the present tense.

I am a Literacy Volunteer. I teach verb conjugation in the regular, old school style, but I notice that more and more correct usage in this tense and person are being dropped in favor of just one form. So we have I go, you go, he/she/it GO etc.

It grates on my nerves when a student says "She go to school" or "he do yard work today." I always correct them but it seems like a losing (not loosing) battle as the rules get looser (not loser).

[KauaiK]

41. THANK YOU!!!!

Now can you educate on its and it's; they're and their; and your and you're?

[polmaven]

43. I rant when I see

someone write that he/she "should of" done this or that. Folks......it is "should have"!!!!

[bluestate10]

45. When I read a sentence, I look for the intent of the writer. People make simple mistakes with words,

that doesn't make them stupid. All of have our hot spot misuse of words, the one that rings me up is when people use "moran" for "moron".

[adirondacker]

47. I think this thread needs an appropiate tune...

[link:

|

[jp11]

48. Threw or through?

[Science Geek]

54. Fast food restaurants...

...started calling it a drive-'thru' a while ago, and I occasionally see people spell it that way in reports or correspondence. Which brings me to 'tuff'. If this gets any tougher, I'll be thoroughly through.

Roster vs. Rooster! (Ha! Ha!)
Please remove me from your rooster! (Google it)

[UtahLib]

49. Realtor and realty t

I don't know if it's a regional pronunciation problem, but I hear relator or relaty spoken even by news broadcasters in this area. I have also heard people say crick when meaning creek and jewlery rather than jewelry. I think I could go on forever. Most people don't appreciate being corrected so I try to ignore it unless uttered by one of my children.

[Science Geek]

58. Splatter for spatter...

Blood may splatter from an artery, but once it's on the floor it's spatter.

When I first moved to Ohio, I started hearing 'crick' which is a painful spasmodic condition of muscles; nothing more, being used to describe small creeks or streams which are really 'brooks' or even 'rills' if small enough.

I guess it goes in order: River, stream, creek, brook, rill. Anyone know if that's right?

[reflection]

55. I have no ideal what your talking about. n/t

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

56. Worse than all of the above: then vs. than

[Quixote1818]

57. Many here have a lot to learn. Keep in mind that a lot of people are Dyslexic

Last edited Sun Nov 11, 2012, 12:01 AM - Edit history (1)

Many dyslexic people endured being called "stupid" etc. growing up. Many kids commit suicide because they don't learn the same way others do and because of the low self esteem that comes from this. Prejudice against people who learn differently can be just as painful as prejudice against gays or people because of their race.




Dyslexia: A Hidden Disability

&feature=related

[janx]

61. Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner--Notice the way their characters

express themselves.

[janx]

62. Nauseous versus nauseated--

If you are nauseous, that means that you are making people puke.

If you are nauseated, then you are the one doing the puking.

[Science Geek]

66. emesis often leads to emeses.

Nauseous has been misused for so long, that many dictionaries have added a second meaning for nauseous which echos nauseated.
But, I tend to agree with you, why would we need two words with exactly the same meaning?

[janx]

72. These refer to the difference between

cause and effect, Science Geek!

[Nedsdag]

64. Here's a website for everyone:

www.losenotloose.com

[danimich1]

67. Yes there are a lot of other errors

But I've been noticing the "loose" one constantly lately. What a great way to use the word - on Romney and friends who are such losers in so many more ways than just this election!

I have to admit that the errors here are not nearly as bad as the ones in freeperville!

[quinnox]

68. It's everywhere and is a sign of how badly our education system has gone down

I have even seen this mistake in magazines and on blogs that are supposed to be professional. They don't teach spelling like they used to, and most kids today hate reading a book, or reading in general. They think it is boring. If you don't read, then you will be more prone to making mistakes like this, and another one which drives me crazy - "noone" - this is also everywhere. I had to explain some years ago this is not a word on another message board, and people still didn't believe me, even when I pointed out it is not in any dictionary.

A big problem with lose vs loose is spell check doesn't work on it, so you have to know the difference on your own, otherwise you will keep making the same mistake.
I think we are stuck with bad spelling and it will only get worse, because they don't seem to put much stock in proper spelling these days in education.

[janx]

73. I teach college writing, and I can tell you that

a lot of this has to do with the misuse of spell check. You are right about reading, but some similar words show up because young adults go through spell check at a fast rate and don't pay attention to the changes they are or not making.

The same thing happens now with the lack of copy editors online: There are wrong words or missing words (incomplete sentences)--sometimes it's so bad that headlines don't even make sense.

[dooner]

70. loose rhymes with goose

that's how I was taught and it's the way I keep it straight..

[1620rock]

71. Funny how you can say prick your finger on the radio, but you can't say finger your prick.