Easy Grammar Tip #2: Loose and Lose
Published on January 27, 2018
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Today I would like to address a mistake that I see everywhere, blogs, social media, texts. It's everywhere! It drives me nuts!
As always, I am sympathetic to writers who are not native English speakers. I'm not as sympathetic to native English speakers, but I am digging around for some compassion. ;-)
The words "loose" and "lose" have two different meanings. And they just get thrown around with abandon by people who do not realize what a big mistake it is. I've seen this stick out like a sore thumb on otherwise well written posts.
So here we go:
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Loose indicates a person, place or thing has gotten away, broke free, is coming undone, etc. Loose change, loose screw, escaped convict running loose, etc. Usually if something is loose it needs to be fixed, or found.
Then we have:
Lose is mainly a future tense word, but not always. It is synonymous with lost or loss. If you lose something it can't be fixed, it's gone.
"If your team doesn't practice, they will LOSE the game tomorrow night."
I hope this helps a little. These grammar glitches really do stick out. If I've contributed to cleaning up some of the confusion, then my work here is done. ;-)
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