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I see this error in almost every post on this message board and Reddit. What is the reason? School budget cuts? It's almost as bad as "your" vs "you're", but I gave up on people figuring that one out a long time ago.

Why can't people grasp the difference between the two? The pronunciation and meaning are completely different. For reference:

Loose

not firmly or tightly fixed in place; detached or able to be detached.
"a loose tooth"
synonyms:   not fixed in place, not secure, unsecured, unattached; More
detached, unfastened, untied;
wobbly, unsteady, movable
"a loose floorboard"
antonyms:   secure, tight

Lose

1.
be deprived of or cease to have or retain (something).
"I've lost my appetite"
synonyms:   be deprived of, suffer the loss of; More
no longer have
"he's lost a lot of blood"
antonyms:   keep, regain

The people who would care already know this and the people who do not care will not ever start to use grammar properly.
After a while , there are more people complaining about grammar than those with wrong grammar.

There's a lot of people who can't spell in the world and this forum is part of that world. What do you expect?

People write "loose" instead of "lose", no one corrects them, others believe usage is correct.

 :-\

if one understands the context the spelling is irrelevant. only someone without a life would draw joy out of calling someone on it to boost their little ego.

i say the size of your bank account / wallet says how smart u r

its wierd how bad it's getting on the internet never b4 has so much stupid been let lose at once with other's learning to read from igneranuses.

I just realized I can't even make up writing as bad as I've seen...

I think we all underestimate the number of people on these boards who's native language isn't English.
Can't really blame them for not using lose vs. loose.  Their grammar is probably better than most Americans on here.  #justsaying

Here you go: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.61260

A thread with a poll that says "Will bitcoin make a new all time resent low?"

Also this thread has 3000+ pages in it.

This tread is full of loosers.

Yeah, I usually stop and think before I type either, indeed with this word, sometimes you can make mistakes.

i am trying to spamwhore myself for this month, so i haven't been the best with punctuation or grammar  ;D

another thing that gets me is your and you're. if you are unsure, just use "ur." maybe it's not correct, but it's a lot better than "your." btw, i had someone tell me "your redicules." also, there, they're, and their

Most of the newbies post  their addresses to get some loose change, maybe they have been a looser all their life and then there are some that have so many BTC that they don't care even if they lose some in gambling - who knows they might have a loose screw in their heads.

Not a native english speaker, correct me if there is a grammatical mistake.

bad grammar is contagious

Thank you for you post.

I have alluded to this very problem many times on internet forums and have repeatedly only gotten kicked in the teeth.

As I decry the misuse of the apostrophe, I also mourn the decline of the subjunctive.

I am of the opinion that those who cannot effectively and correctly communicate should shut the f*** up!

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i1/rutrose2000/English_Motherfucker_Do_You_Speak_I.jpg (http://media.photobucket.com/user/rutrose2000/media/English_Motherfucker_Do_You_Speak_I.jpg.html)

My $.02.

.)

It's not the non-native English speakers. If they are advised of an error they will correct it because they want to speak the language properly.  They have something lacking in native speakers.............pride in their ability to correctly read, speak and write the language.

It is the lazy-assed native speakers who have an "It'll do!" attitude who drive me nuts.

My $.02.

;)

This thread is making me loose my mind.
Just stop it already , it is loosing its meaning as all of you repeat it over and over.
Some people have a few screws lose and will not follow it whatever you do.

I'm not a native English speaker, but even when writing something in my mother language, I am still trying to be as correct as possible. In short, I just feel obliged to write without errors...

How about the mixing and apparent interchangeability of "their", "there" and "they're".  That grinds my gears.

Alot (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.de/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html) of grammar nazis approval is certain.

STOP IT!

Ur makeen my hed hert!

;)

Looks like most people on this forum consider acceptable writing moar instead of more, center instead of centre...

I'm curious: what happens if you do this in your school works in your country?

Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

center - 17 entries found for center
moar - word not found

I was under the impression that centre and center were two different ways to spell the same word (UK and US spelling respectively). Did I miss something?  :)

Yes, he leapt to an uninformed conclusion, likely no offence was meant. I would be reasonably chuffed if you blokes would end this quarrelling. Today you learnt that each country has their own flavour of English where words are spelt differently. This is an artefact of separate evolution of language in disparate regions, after constant dialogue is broken. There is no way to harmonise this schism in practise, even in the Internet age. Simply realise that you should allow people to spell things their favourite way, as long as it is considered correct somewhere. There is no defence of some unskilful Internet ignoramuses, however.

(UK people may not get the humour above; reading this is like being slapped in the brain with a fish to Americanos, due to the many non-American spellings.)

It's even more painful to see people misuse lose and loose when English is not your native language.

Hey! I had mine tightened last week, FYI.  ;D

All non native english speakers study UK English at school.
That's why there are more UK English speakers than US English ones.

Your write :P.

Yes, proper grammar is important, but it's not that big of a deal. But sometimes improper grammar could get you put on the Sex Offenders' Register: "Let's eat out children" Vs Let's eat out, children :P.

I admit I make this mistake all the time. It is very simple to understand, and it goes back to the way the words are pronounced. The difference in pronunciation is only the ending, the 's' sound vs the 'z' sound. Both words start with the 'loo' sound, so it makes sens to try to spell it 'looze', obviously that looks wrong so you change the z to an s, and you end up with 'loose' instead of 'lose', which looks like it should be pronounced like 'those' or 'hose', just don't pronounce it like 'dose' because that has the wrong vowel AND the wrong consonant.

The underlying problem is the loose correlation between spelling and pronunciation which causes words to lose their logical spelling.


Now will somebody explain why pint does not rhyme with tint, lint, mint, squint and hint, or have the same vowel sound as pin, in, spin, tin, win, bin or sin?

Panda eats shoots and leaves vs Panda eats, shoots and leaves

The best one is when somebody says 'your retarded' haha. It's like they've punched themselves in the face.

I've also seen a few people complain about somebody else’s grammar and spelt it grammer. Idiots.


 ;D

Cum on grandma.

Very informative  ;D thanks

I give out cane strokes for:

loose instead of lose
Grocers' apostrophes, e.g. Tomato's
Any modifier on 'unique'

like, is their a foul muun oar somethin'?

I find hardly anyone can ever correctly spell 'definitly'... wait... definately... definetely... defiantly... fuck!

http://pim.cpcache.com/product/129996564/mug.jpg?side=b&height=350&width=350

its spalled defanatalay

u durm na

larn tu spail

u radnak

Deffo :D.

Easy to remember - "finite"

Many people on this forum are not native English speakers. They may not use the language perfectly but at least they try. There are also many children here that don't attempt to use perfect written communication. They are at a disadvantage because they were schooled in the USA.

You're right, and I sort of agree with your original point, that is, provided you can get your point across, some spelling/grammatical errors shouldn't be much of an issue. But I don't think anyone here is trying to stop them from using the forum or some such... you learn as you go, as you use the language. So I was just pointing out that using Spanish, even though you can use a translation service to understand it, it does little to help them learn English, and is probably not that great at communicating with most of the users of this forum.  :P

Children?! I don't remember exactly, but isn't this forum 18+ or so?

English is a notoriously difficulty language to learn. I don't begrudge anyone for not having perfect grammar. English and Americans are generally lazy when it comes to learning another language anyway, so I find it rich when they criticise others when they themselves cannot use the language properly, nor can they speak another language other than their own. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever met somebody with perfect English grammar, and of course that includes myself and, ironically, most so-called grammar nazis.

How would you know if English is your native language (is it?)? I don't think it difficult (English grammar at least), neither do I find myself specifically capable at learning foreign languages (now it is a matter of vocabulary for me)...

Really? I always thought, and heard other people saying, that it was one of the easiest languages to learn.  ???

I won't point out all the grammatical errors in the above statement ;D.

There are many ways in which English is difficult to grasp. Obviously there's no test to rate languages on a scale of difficulty, but I've found the majority of people who speak English as a second language have told me how difficult they find it, and I often read about how hard it is to master the grammar, but obviously some people pick languages/grammar up quickly than others. Maybe try find a multi-lingual person and ask them haha.

Now you have no other option left but do just that, as what you've stated means there are some. This is an Off-topic section of the forum, so you have the right to unleash yourself (and I would not mind)...

Not exactly grammatical errors, but allow me to try...  ;D

How would you know if English is your native language (is it?)? - I kind of take this to mean that you're asking him if he is sure that English is his native language. So, maybe a comma in there might help: "How would you know, if English is your native language?" though it may be more clear the other way around: "if English is your native language, how would you know?".

I don't think it difficult (English grammar at least) - I'm not sure you can omit the implicit "is" in there: "I don't think it is difficult (English grammar at least)"

neither do I find myself specifically capable at learning foreign languages - I don't know if "specifically" is the best word to use in this context; you're sort of specifying something indeed, but it kind of sounds weird to me. Also, did you mean "incapable" instead of "capable"? And "of" instead of "at"? That way, I think you're saying that you don't find yourself capable of learning foreign languages. "neither do I find myself specifically incapable of learning foreign languages"

Anyway, that's all I got. I hope someone else can help out (and probably point out my own mistakes).  ::)

I think that a comma is not needed here. If the conditional clause comes first, we put a comma between it and the main clause (as in this sentence). We don't use a comma if the main clause comes first (though we could still use a comma to aid better understanding). And a comma should be used when connecting two independent clauses

Your doubts are actually about semantics and possible misunderstanding, that's why the context is so important (by the way, this sentence is made of two independent clauses)

I can omit the linking verb here, I am absolutely sure of that


I did actually mean that I am not very good at learning foreign languages (which should be clear from the context), my point being that the English language (its grammar) is not so difficult that even I could somewhat learn it. That's why I used "specifically" to point this out...

The first one would be clearer if he specified what 'know' linked to, rather than leaving it open ended which causes confusion because it looks like it links to 'English is your native language' rather than 'English is hard to learn'. So a more clear way of writing it would be "How would you know English is hard to learn if English is your native language (is it)?" Or, as suggested, you could add the comma to separate the two clauses.

"I don't think it difficult" - looks fine to me. That is not the phrase structure I use, but that does not make it wrong. I find your objection unfounded.

On the third part, I agree it should be "capable of learning".

As to me, being "capable of learning" means having the qualities or abilities needed to do something (i.e. learning a language in principle), whereas being "capable at learning" means being skilled at doing something, i.e. "doing it the right way". So when I say that I am capable of learning a foreign language, I mean that I can learn it to a certain degree. But when I say that I am capable at learning a foreign language, it means that I can master it perfectly...

Gulp! I thought it was the size of one pinis.  :P

I don't think you can say "capable at doing something". You can say "capable of doing something", or "good at doing something". You might also say you are "capable in a topic or field".

So these are acceptable renderings of the original sentence:
neither do I find myself specifically capable of learning foreign languages (If you view 'learning foreign languages' as an action)
neither do I find myself specifically capable in learning foreign languages (If you view 'learning foreign languages' as a field of study)
neither do I find myself specifically proficient at learning foreign languages

"Capable at doing" gives me 325,000 results in Google... Can Google be actually wrong to such a degree? Really, I don't feel that I misused the word and preposition here (I wrote intuitively). Also, regarding the ambiguity, consider the dialogue below:

- English is a notoriously difficult language to learn!
- How would you know if English is your native language?

Don't see any ambiguity here (and no pause between the two clauses that would formally justify a comma between them in writing). Obviously, the context says it all. Even if I wanted to ask about native language, the whole question would sound really insane (note "whether" instead of "if"):

- How would you know whether English is your native language?

Now, I want you all to remember that...................................................

.....the misuse of the prepostion, especially the ending of a sentence with a preopostion is something up with which I will not put!

The above sentence is technically grammatically correct but awkward as Hell.

What is one to do?

My $.02.

;)

Fixed sp. (sorry, all this talk of grammar made me do it)

But a Google search for "capable of doing" gives 103,000,000 hits. And if you look at the links for "capable at doing", they are not very reliable sources, mostly the middle of blog posts. So this seems to be a common mistake, perhaps common enough that it is no longer a mistake and is acceptable now?

Those letters are next to each other, so no wonder I could make an error. Now fixed...


As I said before, I see the difference in meaning between these variants, so I don't consider it (to be) a (common) mistake at all. In short, you don't know the language yourself at the level you pretend you do. "Capable at doing something" means that you can do it pretty well (skilled at doing it), not just being capable of doing it in the sense of being able to do something at all...

This is an example of how there are two ways of making spelling mistakes, mistakes that come from just not knowing the correct spelling, and mistakes that come from hitting the wrong key. I often hit keys in the wrong order. So I will hvae sentecnes wiht wrods liek htis.

Actually, I don't care about those mistakes, not in the slightest degree ("difficulty language")...

Should be:  Now, I want you all to remember that the misuse of the preposition, especially the ending of a sentence with a preposition, is something I will not put up with!

(I fixed the spelling and added a comma, and fixed the ending. You can end a sentence with 'put up with' since it is acting as a verb phrase and not a preposition.)

Yeah, I do the occasional typo and sometimes overlook them.

The comma was a good catch though.

I think you missed the point of the post however........................................

I was sort of poking fun at the whole thing..............................

My $.02.

;)

Yeah, I understand you were trying to be funny, but it would work better if your sentence was actually structurally correct. "... is something up with which I will not put" is not just awkward, it is wrong because it separates and reorders the pieces of the idiomatic phrase "put up with" so far as to completely disconnect them.

I make mistakes as well but sometimes when I try to correct it with this damn Firefox plugin I click the wrong one , and then I end up with a correct world oath takes on sees :) word that makes no sense.
Also , English is the 4th language I've learned :)

You still didn't get it.

I was having fun with a quotation oten attributed to Winston Chruchill but evidently were the degree of awareness of history around herewere put into watts and called a light bulb, that bulb would not light a darkened room.

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/churchill.html

From the citation:

"The saying attributed to Winston Churchill rejecting the rule against ending a sentence with a preposition must be among the most frequently mutated witticisms ever. I have received many notes from correspondents claiming to know what the “original saying” was, but none of them cites an authoritative source.


The alt.english.usage FAQ states that the story originated with an anecdote in Sir Ernest Gowers’ Plain Words (1948). Supposedly an editor had clumsily rearranged one of Churchill’s sentences to avoid ending it in a preposition, and the Prime Minister, very proud of his style, scribbled this note in reply: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” The American Heritage Book of English Usage agrees.


The FAQ goes on to say that the Oxford Companion to the English Language (no edition cited) states that the original was “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.” To me this sounds more likely, and eagerness to avoid the offensive word “bloody” would help to explain the proliferation of variations."

Just my $.02.

;)

I always liked such sentences. You never know what you will end up with...

Should of instead of should have grinds my gears personally.

Obviously, saying something perfectly on topic and in another language grinds your gears too!

The point I was making is one of degrees. You have to do a little translating when you read a post written by a non native English speaker. Suffer through the bad grammar because you don't know why that person writes the way they do. Everyone has something to add regardless of your desire to receive the info and it doesn't need to be in perfect form.

I just noticed a couple of my messages got deleted along with yours...  :(

It's probably in the rules section somewhere I'm sure (no, I haven't read it yet), but it still seems like an overkill to just delete the messages, specially when the person posting it had a good point (even though I agree that it could have been presented in a better way).

They're way overworked and don't always really read what they're deleting. I am glad that they are keeping the off-topic section so squeaky clean. If they didn't do that then we might miss important info about who's a virgin or popular satanic music today. LOL

Now I purposely made some mistakes in the above sentences. Who can find them? Will you be the winner or the looooser?

You probably missed some commas, but since I often miss them too, I would abstain from blaming you for that. Also, that part about "who is popular satanic music today" catches my eyes and ears...

Very good. You're right, I missed commas. Now take one more look at that post because it will be deleted soon, along with yours, for quoting me. lol

You could just throw up a copy/pasted google translate of the non-english post along with the original. That way people will know what you are saying, and we are much more lenient when we know you are a non-native speaker.

'Should of' is something native speakers say because they are too lazy to learn the language they speak and do not think about the words they use. The contraction "should've" ends with a sound like "of", and so the ignorant just write it that way.

I know the reasons why people use "should of" and instead of what, but to me it looks more like "sort of". So, when someone writes something along the lines "they should of done this", it often seems to me that the actual meaning being conveyed is that "we somehow expected (hoped) them to do that" with less certainty than the correct wording would convey... Is it only me?

Sometimes I see people who use basic grammar reasonably well get this wrong, but I think that is down to an honest mistake, typo or an auto-correct.

If people just think about what they are saying/typing then they will realise what the correct usage is, at least I would hope so!

Maybe the education system needs to engage people in different ways, how exactly I'm not so sure.

Well, it's not that simple. As aforementioned, you can't ignore that a lot of users don't have English as their native language, so it's not necessarily intuitive for them how to spell/which form is correct. And without a good dose of "self-inflicted" exposure to English, there probably isn't much that the education system can do.

Obviously the meaning is different. This isn't a reason for not confusing those two. Also for non english speaking people like me the pronunciation is pretty much indifferent.

In a 2010 study, it was estimated that approximately 9% of non-Hispanic Americans are fully bilingual, speaking English and having learned a new language fluently. That number jumps to 15% bilingual if you include Hispanics. On the other hand, 56% of the EU is multilingual. Countries like Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands increase that number to over 90%.

Americunts demand that everyone conform to their language. When people try but get something wrong they bitch at them. I don't know how many times in my life I've heard the phrase, "If you can't speak the American language right then get the fuck out of this country." Really dude? That doesn't sound like Cherokee your speaking.

That's odd; I imagined that the percentage of bilingual people in the EU would be higher. But I suppose it makes sense, as older people are less likely to have had a second language at school.  ::)



 ;D

EDIT: "[...] your speaking." you did that on purpose didn't you?  :P

The EU is higher and yes, now that I know how many people are bothered by something as simple as your vs. you're I'm going to do it all the time. Basically, I'm a prick sent to the world by the FSM to annoy people. lol

This one bugs me. Not only do they have different meanings, they have different pronunciations. Your is one sylable, like yore, and you're is two syllables, rhymes with sewer. But the most annoying part of your-you're is that many times the sentence will have a valid but completely different meaning when the wrong word is used.

I can't argue with that. Your right. rofl

Your retarded  ;D.

LOL

What about his retarded smile? I think you forgot to complete your sentence!

It is my right to be offended at idiots.

Eh?

He said he can't argue with me because it is my right to be bugged by that sort of typo.

Then you started to say something about his retarded smileyface but didn't finish the thought.

http://static2.fjcdn.com/comments/my+joke+skyrocketed+over+your+head+not+even+a+close+_66815b942ee838e07bfa07bfe5342939.jpg

Feel free to laugh at yourself  :D 8).

kireinaha you know only a native speaker can understand another native speaker.
By the way, the correct form is still "lose" pronounced "loose".

Clearly you didn't get my joke, since I had to explain it to you. Who should be laughing?

Nice try.

Alsmost the same as ( of course and ofcourse) :D my grammar is broken.

When I was a kid, my English teacher would dismiss anyone from class for using "gonna (going to)" "wanna" and etc.

Cannot imagine her screams when she encounters this "lose loose" dilemma.

Although my English sucks donkey balls, despite me having best grades at that time. We're living in a multicultural internet age. Spend two months on 4chan/Reddit and try to spellcheck yourself afterwards.

I don't see any similarity???

(of course spelled ofcourse) is making a compound word out of two words in a way which is not done in English (at least, I can't think of any words where of is used as a prefix), and the resulting word is not a valid English word and so this mistake will be caught by any spellcheck.

(lose spelled loose) is spelling a word more phonetically than the correct spelling, and the resulting word is a valid English word, so spellcheck will not catch it.

Often?

Though it is not a compound word, since it is just an extended form of oft, as far as I know. But looks very similar to what you can't think of...

Often is not derived from 'of ten', it is, as you rightly point out, related to oft. Thanks for emphasizing my point for me.