Loose vs lose

Sang Froid

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Loose adj. 1 not firmly fixed in place.
2 not tied up or shut in.
3 (of a garment) not fitting tightly.
4 not dense or compact.
5 not exact.
v. unfasten or set free.


Lose v. (losing, lost) 1 have taken away from one; cease to have.
2 become unable to find.
3 fail to win.
4 waste time or opportunity.
5(lose oneself in) become deeply invloved in.


Could people please start realising the difference between the two, (although I have many a time managed to loosen my capital i.e set if free it is impossible to loose money.) I must have read loose instead of lose nearly fifty times this morning on these boards. It's one of my biggest pet hates :mad:

That and 'pacifically' instead of 'specifically' but that's verbal and not written, and usually ends up with smack in the teeth :cheesy:

"There's a Moose loose aboot this hoose."
 
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There, their, they're, no need to stress about it. ;)

TBH I don't see why many people find it so difficult. Education is free in the UK, so I'm not surprised "your" irritated.
 
"DVD's" or "CD's" or "PC's" When what they really mean is: DVDs CDs and PCs, as in the plural (y)
 
Slightly off-topic though it might be, here's my fav commentary on the subject.

From Astounding Science Fiction, Anthology 1946, by Dolton Edwards

...As a catalytic agent, we suggest a National Easy Language Week. Some spelling change would be announced, to be adopted in the coming year. All schoolchildren would be given a holiday, the lost time being the equivalent of that gained by the spelling short cut.

In 1946 we could eliminate the soft c, substituting s. This would be selebrated in all sivic-minded sircles. In 1947, we could substitute k for the hard c, as both letters would be pronounsed identikally. So two years of this prosess would klarify konfusion for students, and already we would have eliminated one letter from the alphabet.

By 1948 all skhool tshildren would be looking forward to the annual holiday, and, in a blaze of publisity, ph would be banned, henseforth to be written f.

By 1949, publik interest in the fonetik alfabet would allow a more radikal step forward - eliminating al unesesary double leters, whitsh, although harmles have always ben a nuisanse.

The advanse in 1950 would be to spel al difthongs fonetikaly. Tbough perhaps not imediately aparent, the saving in taime and efort wil be tremendous when we leiter elimineite the seilent e, meid posible bai the tsheinge.

In 1959 we would urg a greit step forward. As it would hav ben for yers sins anywun had used the leter c, we could substitut it for th. It would be som taim befor peopl would becom akustomed to reading buks wic sutsh sentenses in cem as "Ceodor cought he had cre cousand cistles crust crough ce cik of his cumb!"

So ce proses would go on, geting rid of y in 1952, alowing it to be reusd for sh from 1953. Kontinuing cis proses, we would eventuali hav a reali sensibli writen langug.

In fakt, by 1975, wi ventyur to sei, cer wud bi no mor uv ces teribl trublsm difikultis, wic no tu leters usd to indikeit ce seim nois, and laikweis no tu noises riten wic ce seirn leter. Even Mr Yaw, wi beliv, wud be hapi in ce noleg cat his drims fainali keim tru.
 
I think it's funny that so many people can't tell lose from loose. So much so that I literally p*ss myself whenever I see it.
 
Slightly off-topic though it might be, here's my fav commentary on the subject.

From Astounding Science Fiction, Anthology 1946, by Dolton Edwards

...As a catalytic agent, we suggest a National Easy Language Week. Some spelling change would be announced, to be adopted in the coming year. All schoolchildren would be given a holiday, the lost time being the equivalent of that gained by the spelling short cut.

In 1946 we could eliminate the soft c, substituting s. This would be selebrated in all sivic-minded sircles. In 1947, we could substitute k for the hard c, as both letters would be pronounsed identikally. So two years of this prosess would klarify konfusion for students, and already we would have eliminated one letter from the alphabet.

By 1948 all skhool tshildren would be looking forward to the annual holiday, and, in a blaze of publisity, ph would be banned, henseforth to be written f.

By 1949, publik interest in the fonetik alfabet would allow a more radikal step forward - eliminating al unesesary double leters, whitsh, although harmles have always ben a nuisanse.

The advanse in 1950 would be to spel al difthongs fonetikaly. Tbough perhaps not imediately aparent, the saving in taime and efort wil be tremendous when we leiter elimineite the seilent e, meid posible bai the tsheinge.

In 1959 we would urg a greit step forward. As it would hav ben for yers sins anywun had used the leter c, we could substitut it for th. It would be som taim befor peopl would becom akustomed to reading buks wic sutsh sentenses in cem as "Ceodor cought he had cre cousand cistles crust crough ce cik of his cumb!"

So ce proses would go on, geting rid of y in 1952, alowing it to be reusd for sh from 1953. Kontinuing cis proses, we would eventuali hav a reali sensibli writen langug.

In fakt, by 1975, wi ventyur to sei, cer wud bi no mor uv ces teribl trublsm difikultis, wic no tu leters usd to indikeit ce seim nois, and laikweis no tu noises riten wic ce seirn leter. Even Mr Yaw, wi beliv, wud be hapi in ce noleg cat his drims fainali keim tru.

:LOL::LOL::LOL::LOL:

In fact I'm sure George Bernard Shaw tried to implement something similar by re-writing the alphabet. His example being the stupidy of the English language that fish could well be spelled 'ghoti' as in 'gh' from cough for the F,' o' from women for the I and 'ti' from station for the SH.

He quite clearly didn't get very far.
 
Some of you guys really need to cut lose when it comes to grammar and stuff.
 
I had a pop at someone on a different thread the other day about this very issue. Sangfroid, I think there is a responsibility to point out these silly errors which if nothing else may help overcome the obvious failings in the UK education system. Why is it a crime to know how to spell? Or to understand the basics of grammar? Mis-spellings and grammatical errors 1) hinder comprehension in the recipient and 2) potentially alter the meaning of the sentence.

As a final thought, if someone can't be bothered to spell correctly, maybe they can't be bothered to enter trade orders correctly, or check their systems thoroughly etc.
 
I am in complete agreement with mean, even though that probably classifies me as a cantankerous old geezer.
 
Well said, I must admit I still have to look up in the dictionary how many l's are in balloon or if the correct term for what I'm trying to convey is adverse or averse but I do look it up because I'm not lazy.

Sometimes I weep at the **** poor state of our educational system, and by being pedants we are helping to move society along in the right direction :p
 
As I say, spell however you want but sloppy spelling/grammar/pronunciation probably indicates sloppy trading.
 
The same however could be said for pedantic spelling/grammar/pronunciation. Maybe by being so pedantic over my trading and maybe having a touch of OCD means I over analyse my trades and entries and thus miss the big moves and hence why I've blown so many accounts.
 
My dad had kept a copy of his maths O-level, which he took in the early 60's. It was the same difficulty as my maths A-level, which I took in 1990.

GCSEs these days are not worthy of wiping your *** on. If you can spell your name (and write it down), you get an automatic A*. Grades improve EVERY YEAR without fail, and it's outright insulting to hear ministers say "standards are improving" when in fact the complete reverse is happening.

All you need to do is read the emails people send in (even to newspapers like the Telegraph) to know that the majority of people below the age of 30 in this country are illiterate. How we are going to compete with economies like China, I have no idea (we won't). We're lazy, self indulgent and ill educated and in a couple of decades the UK will resemble a third world country.
 
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