You may lose your credibility through loose spellings

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You may lose your credibility through loose spellings

English has many pairs of words that sound alike but are spelt differently and mean different things: there / their, hear / here, write / right, no / know, and new / knew, for example. These words are homophones (homo in Greek means the same andphone in Greek means sound or voice). One such pair is lose / loose, and the two words are far more often mistaken for each other because they also look more alike. However, the difference between them is quite clear cut.

To begin with, lose is a verb whereas loose is an adjective: if you lose weight, your trousers may become loose for you. If a part is loose, it may drop off and will be lost. The noun form of to loseis loss: a business makes a loss if it continues to lose money.

You may lose your credibility through loose spellings

In technical writing, loose is usually associated with physical objects: loose-fitting clothes, nuts that are loose because they are not tightened properly, and a loose-leaf notebook from which single sheets can be removed easily.

One way to ensure that you use the right word is to remember the opposites of the two words:lose is the opposite of gain; loose is the opposite of tight; see which is the correct antonym, and you will always choose correctly between loose and lose.

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