I have noticed dozens of examples of people, mainly on the Internet, typing the word “loose” when what they really mean is “lose.” For instance, “I didn’t want to loose the car keys.” Do you know when or how this annoying mistake came to be? It seems like it has only been going on for the past year or so, but it could be longer.
Loose = Lose?
September 16th, 2009 by Aaron
13 Responses to “Loose = Lose?”
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Teaching English to Preschoolers with iPhones
We (i.e. the creators of Pain in The English) developed a series of iPhone apps to teach preschool kids how to recognize letters and words. (My wife developed the characters and I did the coding.) Our own 4-year old daughter has been enjoying them. They are now available on Apple's App Store. You can search for "bitskis" on your iPhone, or visit the official website at bitskis.com.
If you have kids and own an iPhone, please check it out. It's $2.
Yes, it is indeed annoying. I see it all the time, and many people even argue that they are right. Some people even ask me, “Hey, how do you spell ‘lose’? With one O or two O’s?”
I just assumed that this has been going on forever, but you might be right, maybe it’s relatively recent.
I’m inclined to lump “loose/lose” in with “your/you’re/ur (and even ‘yore’!)” and “there/there/their”. While it’s easy to confuse them, there’s really no excuse.
I don’t remember seeing the “loose/lose” problem until fairly recently.
well, I believe the reasons behind this phenomenon (which I have been observing at least for 5 years now) to be, primarily, laziness, ignorance, and mispronunciation. Universal availability of the Internet, with English being the primary language–but still, second language for I think the majority of its users–of all informal Internet communications, certainly is a factor that increased the commonness of this error. If the communication you are making is a) quick, b) insignificant, and c) performed with less than perfect command of the language, you start making this kind of mistakes. your welcome ;-)
I think it’s based on comparative spelling.
Nose, chose, hose, rose, etc., all make an “oh” sound. Noose, loose, moose, etc., all make more of an “ooh” sound. So when people go to spell lose, they think of the “ooh” sound and add an extra o.
It’s something my friends have done for a long time, although it seems to have become a more common problem over the past few years.
My favorite error I saw this week was a person who asked me for “moar” forms. Heheh.
When I see: “I didn’t want to loose the car keys.” I imagine the “s” in “loose” being pronounced unvoiced. I picture someone not losing their keys, but setting them free to roam about on their own (with some regret, of course). Thank you so much for the chuckle I’m having right now.
I agree with a lot of what has been written here. The problem lies, in part, with the basic inconsistency between spelling and pronunciation in English. In general, an “e” at the end of a word after a consonant indicates that the vowel before the consonant is to be pronounced “long.” Thus we have “nose” and “rose,” “hope” and “scope.” And then we have “lose,” which violates the general rule.
In addition, there are many words that rhyme with “lose” that are spelled nothing like it:
adieus
chews
cues
coups
cruise
gnus
twos
shoes
zoos
None of these follow the rule cited above. To complicate matters, we have “choose” which rhymes with “lose,” and “moose” which rhymes with “loose.” It is no wonder some confuse the spelling of “lose” and “loose.” (Spell-check is little help, since both are, in fact, words.)
However, I doubt that primarily non-native speakers of English confuse the two. In my experience those who have had to learn English as a second language often are more proficient in it than “native speakers.” I once had to explain to an Argentinian that if she used the word “penultimate” in its correct sense of “next to the last” she would be misunderstood, as most Americans think it means “beyond ultimate.”
The solution is education. Without it we looze.
In summary then: it’s simply a spelling mistake.
Given the vast numbers of folks who can now write directly onto the Web without having to be vetted by any editor or proofreader, you should not be surprised at the exponential increase in misspelled words.
Get used to it!
It’s much older than the past year.
1598 SHAKES. Merry W. V. v. 239 This deceit looses the name of craft.
1667 MILTON P.L. II. 607 To loose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe.
You sure those are mistakes, goofy?
Generally, one would be said to be holding on to one’s pain and woe. Thus, to be rid of it, it must be loosed, no?
As for the first example… I can’t even guess at what it means to determine if the usage is correct. However, using Google to find it, it shows up as “loses” not “looses.”
That led me to use Google for the second one, as well, and that also came up with more “lose” than “loose.” (There was one “loose.”)
I think this is another case of “oops-by-spell-check”. Most spell-checkers will not highlight a correctly spelled incorrect word. MS Word 2007 will when ever it can: type in “I did not want to loose my dog” and the word ‘loose’ gets the blue wobbly line.
However, even if that’s a legitimate explanation, it doesn’t prevent me from wincing whenever I see it.
That’s odd, considering that “I did not want to loose my dog” is exactly as correct as “I did not want to lose my dog; the only question is which meaning you wanted. Would MS Word highlight “lose” if it was used, too?
Well until I came to this page it had been annoying me, but perhaps it is about to become grammatically correct in countries that are doing it most [I see it on the internet so I don't quiet know where it is coming from] because it has become so common.
Loose, if you look at it, looks like ‘lose’. Although it will be confusing for those of us who are smart. :P
I’m sure the vast majority of “loose” spellers are indeed native English speakers. I have no idea what causes it, either. “Win” and “lose” are some of the basic vocabulary words a kid learns. It’s used in sports and competition all the time. There’s just no excuse for it. There’s not too many words ending in “-ooze,” but no one spells “booze” as “boose.”
Mixing up words like “their” and “there” are a little more understandable, since they sound alike and people might sound words in their head as they type.
And geez, how many people spell the Eminem song as “Loose Yourself”? It makes me wonder if people saw the title of Nelly Furtado’s album and wondered why she called it “lose.”
And yeah, “loose” can technically be used as a verb in its own right, but it seems more or less an obsolete usage.