Tonight I want to talk about a spelling error I just can’t wrap my mind around: loose for lose. No, I did not loose my marbles! And my favorite team is not loosing in the bottom of the ninth.
To me, adding that extra, unwarranted o is as nonsensical as substituting pool for pole.The two have absolutely nothing to do with one another. So I am dumbfounded by the fact that loose is so blatantly misused by an astoundingly large population of writers. I mean, aren’t these second grade spelling words?
The only case in which I laugh at the visual produced by this mistake (which in no way renders it acceptable) is when someone’s kid looses a tooth. It always cracks me up to see this in type. In a way, I suppose the tooth did loose itself from the gumline…
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I have to say KUDOS! That has been one of my hugest pet peeves since I learned to spell! I had a friend in high school who repeatedly spelled “lose” with 2 o’s and she ended up a National Merit Scholar. I never understood it either. Dumbfounded is right.
Comment by janflora April 9, 2008 @ 6:36 pm