Grousing about loose

Pieces are loose if they are en prise; sometimes a loose piece will cause you to lose. A loose game may be chaotic.

English is a terribly difficult language, especially for native speakers because we have more reasons to avoid learning other languages, and languages in general when the rest of the world learns our tongue. Even so, anyone (native speaker and those learning English as their second or eighth language) that plays chess can probably learn to spell lose and distingish it from loose. Yet, 67.89% of forum threads that deal with losing put that extra o in the title. Why?

Edit: bold added after artfizz posted a correction.

Because people learn the 'oo' sound and it makes sense to them that lose is spelled as loose.  This is due to a lack of understanding of English, even for apparent 'fluent' speakers.  It can't even be down to some kind of short-hand since the word is actually longer with the double 'oo'.  I suspect it's something to do with the fact that people don't read as much as they used to and computers have spell checkers so people are not required to make the same effort when they are learning.  As a result they do not get the unique 'rules' of English properly drummed into their brain and mistakes subsequently follow.

This bugs me to see as well but my English is far from perfect so I don't complain.

A

I blame the parents ... and the schools, the teachers, society, the kids - and grammar checkers.

Good catch.

I kant tipe. I ar a eengash techer two.

I use Firefox's spell check to catch these typing errors, but somehow it keeps turning off on this site.

You are fortunate not to have gone through a complete rewriting of the language spelling rules, as the Germans attempted with their Rechtsschreibung initiative.

The reformed orthography became obligatory in schools and in public administration. However, there was a campaign against the reform and in the resulting public debate the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany was called upon to delineate the extent of reform. In its decision of July 14, 1998,^[1] the court stated that because there was no law governing orthography, outside the schools people could spell as they liked, including the use of traditional spelling. In the wake of this decision there have been complaints and fear of the rise of Beliebigkeitsschreibung (arbitrary spelling).^{[citation needed]} For example, confusion caused by the use of both the traditional spelling Schloßstraße and the newly correct Schlossstraße could lead to the completely inconsistent spelling Schloßstrasse.

Reminds me of Mark Twain's (allegedly) plan for the improvement of English Spelling:

Triple consonants trouble me wherever they appear, but I like rules. I would rather see this sort of debate than the current trend towards standardization of non-standard English. When we lose the distinctions that are upheld through careful attention to spelling, grammar, and vocabulary, we lose part of our capacity for thinking.

A trivial example comes most readily to mind: when I was a child, I learned the correct pronunciation of sherbet, which is now listed as sherbert in many dictionaries because other kids' parents were less dutiful.

It will be less trivial in fifty years when outsiders take control of my state and spell its name the way they incorrectly pronounce it: Warshington.

A German woman that I knew in graduate school often had strange idears, but generally had better English than most native speakers.

Ziryab, I share your frustration over people confusing loose with lose.  Also remember that people are always "who" or "whom" and never "that" or "which."

Now you're bringing out the fight that even an old grammar cop like me has abandoned.

Yeah, well, 84.23 of posters on chess.com are unsure about: your, yore, and you're.

I find the what/which substitution interesting.

"What planet are you on!"

"You and what army?" 

Ya'll is plural, but some folks, even in Texas, will use it as a singular.

Loo-sy!! You got some splainin' to do! Can't find the clip, but Ricky reading a book is priceless (bough, trough, though, through, enough, etc.)

I wouldn't think that the ability to spell correctly in English is closely correlated to intelligence. 'Lose' and 'loose' have the same vowel sound so there is no logical reason that they should be spelled differently, and as far as I am aware there is no general spelling rule that provides for this. It just happens to be so.

Oh well, if it was meant humorously then all right. But I don't know how I was supposed to know this short of possessing telepathic abilites.

If they were being spelt phonetically, it might be 'looze' and 'loose', loosely speaking.

oh noes the grammar police

Thank you!

The average IQ of chess.com will skyrocket a good 70 points if everyone can learn the difference between the following:

they're/their/there

you're/your

would HAVE rather than would of

to/too

and then there are the more subtle ones...