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Lose & Loose |
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aziza Member Elite
since 2006-07-09
Posts 2995Lumpy Oatmeal makes me Crazy! |
I am seeing, with increasing frequency, people using the word "loose" instead of the word "lose" Lose is to lose something Loose is when something is not screwed on correctly Example - When I lose my concentration I act as if my screws are loose. A |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Good point. The word loose is actually from Old Norse lauss. The English form was leas "devoid of, false" which would be spelt as lease in our English, and still shows up in an altered way in the suffix -less as in helpless Lose though is from the (old) English word losian "to be lost, fail, perish" that is also related to forleosan, which would be spelt in Modern as something like forleeze since freosan came to be spelt freeze. Both forleeze and freeze have past participles with the z (vibrating s)-sound turned into an r: frorn and forlorn. The word choose also had a form with the z-sound turned into an r as well: coren/corn. The s/z-forms that we are more familiar with, frozen and chosen, are from mimicking the s/z of the other forms of the word. But we never say forlozen instead of forlorn. Just some points to help distinguish these even further. [This message has been edited by Essorant (06-05-2007 01:21 PM).] |
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