

Ask HN: Lose vs. Loose - guynamedloren

I see the word "loose" mistakenly used in place of "lose" time and time again - even within the highly educated HN community.  In my head, there is no correlation whatsoever between the two words, and I would never think to use one in place of the other.  I'm wondering why this mistake is so common.<p>For those of you who are unfamiliar:<p>- If your tooth is wiggly, you could call it a "loose" tooth.<p>- If you're not performing well, you might "lose" your job.<p>- You do not "loose" a basketball game - you "lose" a basketball game<p>- As a result of your loss, you are a "loser", not a "looser" (haven't seen this but it's funny to think about).<p>And some quick definitions from dictionary.com:<p>- lose (verb) - to fail inadvertently to retain (something) in such a way that it cannot be immediately recovered<p>- loose (adjective) - free from anything that binds or restrains; not firm<p>Also, it may be worth mentioning that loose can be used as a verb (ie: to unfasten) or adverb, but it is still not okay to use it in place of "lose".<p>This drives me crazy!  What's the deal?
======
makecheck
It's helpful to educate people, as always. But, I used to care a lot more
about such rules than I do now. I changed my mind for a couple of reasons.

First, English isn't native for everyone. Mistakes are made. In today's world,
it's easy for people to move to another country, and easy to E-mail someone on
the other side of the world, or read their web site. There's a very good
chance that when you read something, it was written by a non-native speaker.

Second, I think the only mistakes that _really_ matter are the ones that
fundamentally change the meaning of a sentence and add ambiguity. As long as I
can _figure out_ what somebody means, and there's nothing else it could be, I
think it's fine. I can't think of a sentence where it is equally likely that
someone is "losing" or "loosing" something, so I know what was intended. On
the other hand, if you say "three" and you meant "thirty", that's a problem
because I'm not very likely to guess what you really meant.

------
joshuacc
1\. Many HNers are not native English speakers.

2\. Homophone typos are very common even among those who know the difference
between the words. In addition, many people have learning disabilities related
to processing the written/spoken word. (My wife, for example, is accustomed to
reading and writing on a graduate level, but has a very difficult time with
spelling common words)

3\. Some people don't feel that it is worth the effort to spell correctly.

------
nithyad
I am weary of the 'there' n 'their' mix-ups too. I sometimes feel too archaic
making a fuss of all this. The Oatmeal comics makes me feel better though!

------
endgame
Someone has set the grammar police lose, but I fear that this is a battle they
will loose.

^ That was on purpose.

In seriousness, I'm as baffled as you are.

------
gexla
<http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling>

