to post this spelling correction? LOSE to mean the loss of something

[Horsie]

I'm on a public-service mission to correct one of the world's most common misspellings. I've seen it thousands and thousands of times online. I think it must be the most misspelt word in the world. Saw it twice today just on Mumsnet.

No shade AT ALL. I literally want to help people look better in writing.

Here goes:

To lose something is spelt LOSE and not loose. Loose only ever means not tight, or to let something go, like a horse. I turned my horse loose. I hope I never lose him.

I'm losing the will to live.
I always lose competitions.
That person is a loser.

My jeans are loose.
My ring goes loosely over my knuckle.
I'm a loser wearing loose jeans.
I always lose my ring in the pool because it becomes loose.

I never realised how commonly this word was misspelt until the internet. I suppose because "lose" does sound like a double "O" with its oooo sound (as opposed to rhyming with hose). That's probably where the confusion comes in, and the wrong spelling is being perpetuated millions and millions of times because of the internet.

I wish someone like JK Rowling with a huge reach would tweet the correct spellings, as a public service. No one likes to look bad in writing.

So there you have it, folks. Write it down a hundred times.

Lose
Lose
Lose
Lose

LOOSE

OK if you are marking academic essays. Not so much on MN.

Omg yes, auto-correct is the very devil. It has a LOT to answer for. I remember in the early days of Word when it changed my school essay about Emily Bronte to being about Omelette Roulette. And it's no better today.

I've always kept quiet, but now I'm going to help people look better in writing.

But the same people writing on MN also write job applications, maybe write letters to their MP, or write tweets, or write things at work that their boss wants to read, etc etc. It's too bad that the internet has perpetuated this misspelling. We must fight it!

Someone should tell her. I'm sure she'd rather know than keep making the mistake in front of lots of followers. It's mean not to tell her.

People don't care. Equally distracting and annoying is when people throw in an obscure combination of letters rather than words in the middle of a sentence. They don't care either.

@Cinaferna This is me and why I always now get confused! I do think it wasn't a word I struggled with before! Bloody spellcheck used to have my back.

I get the jumble thing. I think it's late peri.

I wish I could come up with some clever rhyme for lose/loose to help people remember. I heard one once to help people remember which/witch, but I can't remember it.

I've found myself tempted to write "loose" when I mean "lose," I think because of the zillions of times I've seen it on the internet.

We must fight it!

The loose noose or something?
It could be peri (I did Eng A Level so didn't affect me that much) but I always have to do rest-AU-rant for eg. I won't list the rest or I'll be here for hours googling them!

Spellcheck is the very devil. My phone always wants to "correct" I've to O've. WTAF!

It's stopped changing i to I too which really irritates me!

I always notice the loose/ lose thing and it bugs me too. I would never mention it to an individual who has it wrong but I think it is actually important to use the right words and an instructional post like the op appeals to me so thanks for the post.

I would add another one that really bugs me - bare instead of bear

So many people use - I can't bare it, or bare with me when they should bear.

Bare = naked or uncovered
Bear = to hold up or carry a weight, to endure

I think this might work!

Absolutely with you 100 per cent on this OP. It drives me mad every time I see it, which is often.

I’m with you OP as I’m a pedant but I’m also terrible at spelling!
When my kids were little we had a phonics book called Goose on the Loose and now I don’t mix loose and lose up.

It annoys the fuck out of me because when I read it, initially in my head I hear it as loose, because that's what it fucking says! And yes I do judge someone for their spelling, sorry I can't help it, but that's just me, I do particularly hate the loose/lose one though because it's everywhere.

Thank you for this @Horsie. I dont know why people are being pissy, you weren't rude.

YADNBU.

BTW, I don't agree with this at all. Grammar helps you communicate - that's it's whole purpose. When you write (or speak) something that you want people to read and take notice of, and you write it to the best of your ability, you are using grammar to express yourself with as much clarity as possible. It's not a matter of who is the most educated. (Well, it shouldn't be.) It's about making sense and being really clear. The aim is to be understood by who you're writing/speaking to. That's the purpose of grammar, not one-upmanship.

These words are not actually misspelt; 'loose' and 'lose' are (mostly) correctly spelt. It's the incorrect use of a word.

The context makes loose incorrect though, when used to mean in the sense of losing things.

Interestingly, I don't think I've ever seen lose used to mean not tight.

I really don't think I'm being a pedant. It's a misspelling, and it's wrong, full stop. It's not like arguing about the placement of a comma.

My American teddy bear from NY looked at me really oddly when I told him that he has the right to bear arms since he's a Yank. He said why on earth would he want bare arms, given that he'd have to shave them constantly and he'd be cold, etc. 😂

Haha, that's funny!

Also v. inconvenient because now I'm dying for some Wine Gums!

Ahhh, thank you for my flowers! Yeah, there's some right negative Nancies on here.

But having had the level of education to learn the grammar is privileged.