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richlevy · 01-06-2006, 05:16 PM

On a related topic, I would like to express my frustration with the substitution of two similar words, not just in speech but in writing.

I have seen at least two different posts by two allegedly different Cellar users in which the word 'loose' is substituted for the word 'lose'.

While not of earth shattering significance, this still upsets me.

I have noticed the tendency to switch around homophones. For example, I have seen people substitute "your" for the contraction "you're" a lot, as in "I think your going too far." I have grown to accept this as a natural mutation of the English language.

In the case of loose and lose, the words do not even sound the same when pronounced correctly. They are not homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, or any other kind of -nym. They have no relationship to each other except for sharing a subset of letters in the same order.

I realize that if this is the most troubling thing I have seen recently, then I am leading a charmed life, but for some reason it annoys me. One hope for the Internet is that it would return the world to the age of letter writing, when 'a stern letter to the Times' and the keeping of journals left a historical record of the thoughts of generations.

Unfortunately, the sloppiness people use in speech has crossed over into writing. I am not talking about typos, or even using slang like typo instead of typographical error. I am not even talking about poor sentence structure with concepts like dangling participles. Everyone breaks those, including a huge number of authors. My second grade English teacher would be appalled at the structure of most of my posts.

If it turns out that the people who are doing this are ESL, than I am very sorry that I brought this up. If I was in a forum writing in Spanish and I substituted perro for pero and someone ranted about it, I could honestly say I was trying my best.

Still I figure I should bring it up before it ends up on a resume or application letter.

Now that I think about it, I might have ranted about this a few years ago about the same two words. It might be time to search the Cellar archives.

01-06-2006, 05:16 PM	#134
richlevy King Of Wishful Thinking Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Philadelphia Suburbs Posts: 6,669	On a related topic, I would like to express my frustration with the substitution of two similar words, not just in speech but in writing. I have seen at least two different posts by two allegedly different Cellar users in which the word 'loose' is substituted for the word 'lose'. While not of earth shattering significance, this still upsets me. I have noticed the tendency to switch around homophones. For example, I have seen people substitute "your" for the contraction "you're" a lot, as in "I think your going too far." I have grown to accept this as a natural mutation of the English language. In the case of loose and lose, the words do not even sound the same when pronounced correctly. They are not homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, or any other kind of -nym. They have no relationship to each other except for sharing a subset of letters in the same order. I realize that if this is the most troubling thing I have seen recently, then I am leading a charmed life, but for some reason it annoys me. One hope for the Internet is that it would return the world to the age of letter writing, when 'a stern letter to the Times' and the keeping of journals left a historical record of the thoughts of generations. Unfortunately, the sloppiness people use in speech has crossed over into writing. I am not talking about typos, or even using slang like typo instead of typographical error. I am not even talking about poor sentence structure with concepts like dangling participles. Everyone breaks those, including a huge number of authors. My second grade English teacher would be appalled at the structure of most of my posts. If it turns out that the people who are doing this are ESL, than I am very sorry that I brought this up. If I was in a forum writing in Spanish and I substituted perro for pero and someone ranted about it, I could honestly say I was trying my best. Still I figure I should bring it up before it ends up on a resume or application letter. Now that I think about it, I might have ranted about this a few years ago about the same two words. It might be time to search the Cellar archives. __________________ Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE! I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama Last edited by richlevy; 01-06-2006 at 05:19 PM.