Dear internet,
After seeing a trillion forty-nine sentences like, "I hope he doesn't loose this contest," and "UR a looser," may I enlighten you on a small fact?
LOSE: (looz) vb. destroy, to miss from a customary place, to suffer deprivation of, to fail to use, to fail to win or obtain, to fail to keep or maintain, to wander from, to get rid of.
LOOSE: (loos) vb. not rigidly fastened, free from restraint or obligation, not dense or compact in structure, not chaste, slack, not precise or exact.
You will notice, internet, that not only do the words have different meanings they have different pronounciations as well. That means they are not homonyms, so from now on you will stop getting a free pass. Please stop. Losers.
Sincerely,
Grammar Girl and Spellcheck Boy
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10 comments:
Tip of the internet iceberg baby. *but now secretly wondering if I've done this*
True, but it's the one that irritates me the most!
U R juss jellus becuz U R a looser! Donte B a hatter! 2 muck hat in the werld.
UR so meen!
LOL! I get so tired of non-homonyms like lose and loose. People taught by the 'see and say' method get like that; they never learned to sound out words and don't see they are fundamentally different.
Isn't the internet great? It's brought grammar to a whole new low!
"Loose" drives me nuts too. And the slangy abbreviations are high on the annoying side (but with a 14 year old text addict in the house, what's a girl to do?).
TTYL!
Two, too, and to are bad enough, Written. But loose and lose don't even sound alike!
Beth, I have texting teens, too. (See! I used it properly!) They know that if they text-speak in front of me, they'll be OMGing in their rooms the rest of the night.
Ooh, scary. What super powers does these two have? Can they zap my manuscript and make it perfect?
And I greatly fear that seeing "loose/lose" mis-used so often will finally imprint on my tired brain and I will do it myself even though I know better.
Kimber, they're stronger than silent 'e'...
Bernita, that's one of the reasons I posted this. I'll be able to read it later and say, oh yeah, THAT'S how you spell it.
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