The Difference Between Lose and Loose

Can NO ONE, EVER, GET THIS RIGHT!?!?!?

Loose as a noose. You don't LOOSE your virginity, you LOSE it. I just read "loose your job" in a thread and it's just driving me nuts. Why can't people get this right?

Loose change, as in change that is loose in your pocket. If you lose your money, it's lost. You cannot loose your money.

Am I making sense? Please, someone tell me I am. Please, someone, everyone, try and get this right before I go insane from it? PLEASE!!!!!!

Originally posted by TheLoony
Am I making sense? Please, someone tell me I am. Please, someone, everyone, try and get this right before I go insane from it? PLEASE!!!!!!

Hey don't go banana LOL

You know it's driving me nuts when someone says claims to have a nickname. Darn it, if you give a name to yourself, then it is a moniker and not a nickname.

Another terrible example is candlelight dinner. No, it's not a candlelight dinner; it's a candlelit dinner.



Enjoy your day and don't get lost out there.

Greetings

[edit on 13-2-2009 by TheWriter]

Well, I'm enjoying my evening being as I can't sleep. It's what I get for drinking caffeine. I most likely have already gone bananas but that's life. Also, being lost seems to be a prerequisite for my life. Maybe I'll get found someday. Anyway....

Yeah, moniker. I've never understood that one since most people name themselves. I never thought about the lit/light example, good one. For some reason this whole lose/loose thing is really getting on my nerves. It has been for a while then I finally exploded with this thread. I had to get it out, I couldn't keep it in any longer.

Maybe it won't bug me as much if I ever get back on a regular sleep regimen. Fat chance of that happening, especially if I never get a job to wake up for. That used to help my sleep but now it's all out of whack. The worlds going to end soon so who really needs sleep anyway? HA!

I think you should hang loose...
...otherwise you might lose your head!

Well, I have already lost me marbles, I guess the head comes next? I must have a few screws loose or something.

Originally posted by TheLoony
Fat chance of that happening, especially if I never get a job to wake up for.

Life is Fu* up and that's probably a euphemism. You are not alone with that job issue, but you know what? If you only get a job that a temporary agency makes more money and you still have none left anyway, well ... don't worry if you have got no job. As long as you are not starving and you can afford the basic things you require, keep cool, calm, and collected.

Hey, maybe you need to be nuts to endure all of this

Greetings

PS: don't lose your head LOOOOOOOL

[edit on 13-2-2009 by TheWriter]

You are not the only one who gets crazy over this. I have seriously considered offering my services to ATS as a special moderator of grammar and spelling.
SHEESH!:shk:

Originally posted by TheLoony
Can NO ONE, EVER, GET THIS RIGHT!?!?!?

Take it easy, you sound like you have loosed the plot.

Loose as a noose. You don't LOOSE your virginity, you LOSE it.

You may not understand why some people claim they did loose their virginity. I did lose my virginity to a loose girl, so you can see how easy it is to be lost between lose and loose, and how losely the use of the two terms become.

I just read "loose your job" in a thread and it's just driving me nuts. Why can't people get this right?

Perhaps the peson who just used the term "loose your job" was in fact asking someone to be less tight or restrictive in the way the job was being peformed.

Loose change, as in change that is loose in your pocket. If you lose your money, it's lost. You cannot loose your money.

I often lose loose change, the fact that it is loose makes it more probable for it to make a transition from being loose to being lost, once lost it may be picked up by another individual who will make it loose again by pocketing it. So you can in fact loose your change, by losing it, and making it available fo someone to accept it as lost and then making it loose upon their own person. I find myself feeling like a complete looser when I pick up the particularly small increments(like 5, 10 and 20cents) of loose change that is lost.

Am I making sense? Please, someone tell me I am. Please, someone, everyone, try and get this right before I go insane from it? PLEASE!!!!!!

Completely. But i believe as we were discussing loose change and lost change you really should use the correct terms. Its cents, it really drives me nuts when people get the two mixed up, cents and sense. As in "I have 10 sense loose in my pocket and I lost it, I don't no how I lost it, enen though it was loose, it just does not make any cents.

[edit on 13-2-2009 by atlasastro]

I will gladly give all my loose change to the God of English Language if people would stop saying, " I seen a dog" instead of saying "I saw a dog". or "I have seen a dog."

Every time I see or hear the word seen being used incorrectly I feel like choking someone.

How hard is it? I see, I saw, I have seen.

If I had used seen improperly as a child my dear mother would have slapped my face just like she hit my elbows with the handle of her dinner knife when I put them on the table while eating.

Good idea AD. Maybe we need to have a special forum for spelling and grammar improvement.

Not to derail this thread, but you all should visit the GRAMMAR NAZI THREAD.

And even though it's mentioned there (and I believe I've also said it in a similar thread), I'll add my #1:

"You should of posted that so we could of seen it. I really wish you would of."

:bnghd:

Wait - I hate "emoticons" too. Oh well. Here are some images I made to express how I feel.



or the sig version:



You might also appreciate this, it's in rotation as one of my signature images:



[edit for punctuation and grammar]

[edit on 2/13/2009 by Teratoma]

reply to post by TheLoony



I always lose my loose change lol

I can't stand it...grrrr





- JC

I've always been good at spelling and thought it was because I'd learned how to do it properly as a child.

Since reading so much on the internet, I find my spelling is getting worse. I think it's due to being exposed to all the poor spelling (and punctuation) on here.

All the time I was reading books, seeing the words spelled correctly must have been
reinforcing what I had been taught.

Now all the bad spelling is being reinforced, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, that's just my theory.

As an afterthought, I find the proof-readers on newspapers and magazines aren't as good as they used to be. I'm always finding typos.

I do think the advent of chat room and text lingo has seriously screwed up a lot of people on how to spell anything, anymore. Also, one must consider the state of our schools in this country. I remember the ones I went to, they taught me next to nothing except how to be a good little automaton. I did have one class, in all those years, a American History course that was fabulous but other than that it was all nonsense.

I will conclude this whining session with this; people who cannot capitalize the word I when speaking about themselves should be flogged. Come on, how hard is that to do?

Originally posted by berenike
Now all the bad spelling is being reinforced, if you see what I mean.

You know I don't read any postings from authors who disregard spelling, punctuation, etc.

I listen to my podcasts and I write a few articles. I read a lot and I always choose literature that isn't written with a minimum vocabulary. Of course, I am not English and the mistakes I make may be atrocious at times, but I am pretty positive that my mistakes are kept to a minimum.

If in doubt, I always check in a dictionary before committing something on paper or in an electronical document.

You may want to check out my thread titled "Books With Low Vocabulary".

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Greetings

:bnghd: typooooooooos

[edit on 14-2-2009 by TheWriter]

TheLoony, automatons are everywhere. Our education system has only one goal and it is to create this kind of people; no matter where you go.

Greetings

PS: A little emoticon conversation:

EMO1: Promise, you will accept our indoctrination.
EMO2: I do. I do.

General Information:

It's not meant to be facetious. Just thought this might be of interest to some people:

www.bbc.co.uk...

Anyone who believes to be damn good at the English language should check: www.waywordradio.org...



Greetings

[edit on 14-2-2009 by TheWriter]

Originally posted by TheLoony

I will conclude this whining session with this; people who cannot capitalize the word I when speaking about themselves should be flogged. Come on, how hard is that to do?

Better line me up for a flogging...

I have a very light touch when I'm typing and frequently find my would-be capitals are still lower case. I can usually go back and correct them, but a few escape my notice.

The first letter of my user name isn't lower case because I was being modest.:shk:

You're not alone, it drives me mad too. Along with other common mistakes.

Your/You're

There/Their/They're

Where/Were/We're

Lay/Lie

AAAAUUGH!

I just saw a mod use this word the wrong way. Why is this so bloody difficult? Why can no one ever get this damn word right?

Sure, I probably should get a life and quit worrying about things like this but it drives me nuts to see it all the time.

Grr. Argh.

Both words are pronounced the same way so I don't see why this matters...

Their/they're is a hole different matter though.



[edit on 22-7-2010 by cripmeister]