I truly do not understand how people mix up the words loose and lose, but they do frequently. And, in doing so, they seriously jack up their writing.
Loose (notice the two “o”s) means not fitting closely or tightly.
If you need a trick to remember this, try thinking of those two “o”s. Having two is loose writing. They give the word more space.
Lose is to be without or to fail. As in, the word lose fails to have to “o”s or it loses one “o.”
It doesn’t matter which of these tricks helps you remember the difference between lose and loose, but please remember.
deleted_2698155_BruceSallan1 says
Gee, you lost me, Prof…the ones that get me crazy are “Reason why” which is redundant and “Orientated” which is just wrong given it is “Oriented.” Let’s not start with the “You know’s…”
JohnFeskorn says
This happens way too often, drives me bonkers! By no means, am I a grammar expert, but man o man!! Kinda like your / you’re and there / their / they’re. Another pet peeve, If I may 🙂 …”I could care less”, If you’re trying to tell me you don’t care, then please do NOT leave room to care!! Other than that, I couldn’t care less 🙂
Technically Easy says
I don’t know why people started spelling “lose” with two “o”s – maybe because of the “ooh” sound. Lose is a word that we learn at a very young age, and we see it almost everywhere in our lifetime. For me, it becomes difficult for me to read a sentence that has “lose” spelled wrong because it changes how I would read the sentence.
profkrg says
Technically Easy It doesn’t seem like a difficult rule to me either, but I guess many people struggle with it.