GameDevMike

One of the most common spelling mistakes I see online, the one that annoys me more than any other, is this: l-o-o-s-e. Obviously, loose is spelled correctly in the previous sentence. As an adjective it is most often the antonym of tight. As a verb, like the title of this post demonstrates, it means to set free or to release (and can have the same meaning, in some contexts, in the adjective form). These definitions are not the problem. The mistake I’m referring to is when people use loose in place of lose.

I’m not quite sure if people just think that lose is spelled with two Os, or if they think that lose and loose are the same word. Either way, they are wrong. What I find baffling is how common this mistake is. I understand that some people make a typo now and then, but most of the instances I have seen are obviously not typos. Pay a visit to GameDev.net on any given day and browse the forums. I promise you will see this mistake quite frequently. You’ll find it all over the internet in articles written by college graduates, in blogs written by professionals from different industries, and in many other places. I’ve even seen multiple occurences of the mistake in a published technical book written by an author with 3 college degrees. In the latter case, I don’t know which is more surprising, that such a well educated author made the mistakes in the first place or that they slipped by the editor.

It is said that language rules evolve with usage. That’s quite true. The inclusion of the word ain’t in modern dictionaries is a prime example (my primary school teachers used to use the absence of ain’t in dictionaries as an example of why it wasn’t a word). So it may be that, many years from now, loose will be listed as an alternative spelling of lose in Webster’s. For now, it isn’t.

So if you want to start making your internet writings look more intelligent and not ruin your credibility, remembering that loose is not lose is a good place to begin.