Loose and Lose

[payxibka 10,045]

It's not very nice to make fun of a non-native speaker though; it's kind of cruel.

In this particular situation your comment is completely misguided.

[tsunamihart 0]

Oh talking about English. I have trouble to pronounce some words. I can't make it right for some words for example ; "sheet" and "sh!t". Couple days ago Dan taught me the right way to pronounce "Cutlery". Took 2 days to to get it right.

-G

I'm Texan and nobody understands me either....

The accent is awesome though.

Lose/loose is annoying.

Fiance/fiancee is also annoying. It's one e for a man, two for a woman.

Its/it's, your/you're, and there/their/they're are obvious ones.

One mistake I've noticed, from educated professionals and even people who claim to be teachers, is 'definately'. THERE IS NO 'A' IN DEFINITELY.

I no, I luv to purruze Craigslist.org esspezially for furrnuture and I hate wen peeps spel dining table dinning table, but holy sheet peeps be 4 I loose my mined I alwaz tel Cristina (hey that's spelled correctly) alot that she shud prolly lurn her Inglish frohm someone hoo doz knot cum from Nu Jerzey because definately 99% of my lexicon iz slang. So this 4mer finace now huzband now haz to go and moe hiz lahn @ my hice, but remembur to say "Holly Sheet" and IMO ur alwaz gonna cum out goalden,

L8r gaytorz :-P

tsunamihart - That is just too funny. Niseley Dun

Y moochas grahziaz

[Kez/JWolf 6]

You say there is no excuse for native english speakers to have bad grammer.... does that include people who are dislexic..... and there are many words that are spelt diffrently here in America than they are in England so who is right??? the British, where the language came from or the Americans who have bastardized it???

Kez

[TracyLuis 0]

Oh the hypocracy.

I offer myself up as a sacrificial, hypocritical lamb - if people will just stop saying LOOSE when they mean LOSE!

That's hilarious!! My co-workers and I were just talking about how we were all such spelling snobs

[homesick_american 1]

You say there is no excuse for native english speakers to have bad grammer.... does that include people who are dislexic..... and there are many words that are spelt diffrently here in America than they are in England so who is right??? the British, where the language came from or the Americans who have bastardized it???

Kez

Bastardized it? I beg to differ. English spelling and even pronunciation was not standardized when we threw the British out of the US. The British were the colonial masters of every other English-speaking country on the planet, so when they DID standardize spelling and pronunciation they were able to impose these standards on every English-speaking nation except one: the United States. We standardized spelling and pronunciation as well; we just used a different standard.

If the British wanted our English to be just like theirs, perhaps they should have polished it and standardized its spelling before losing the Revolutionary War.

So...to answer your question...both of us are right.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Oh the hypocracy.

I offer myself up as a sacrificial, hypocritical lamb - if people will just stop saying LOOSE when they mean LOSE!

That's hilarious!! My co-workers and I were just talking about how we were all such spelling snobs

Here's a blog comment I found on this very subject...

Damian -

Lose / Loose:

They are not even pronounced the same....it's enough to make you almost "lose" ['lu:z] your mind and make you think you have a screw ['lu:s].... with a longer vowel sound in the former.

As Mick says, it's easy to confuse them and believe me, natives do it more often than you would think. Word blindness is quite a common occurrence, even with words you normally know very well.... it's just that the mind sometimes plays tricks on you. The delicious vagaries and inconsistencies of English don't help either, but I think that adds to the fun and interest levels of our silly, stupid language...the one I love so much. God knows how I ever managed to learn it.....I still see something every day I never knew the day before.

I am so, so, so, so impressed with the standard of written English in this forum from non-native speakers. You all deserve the highest accolade. Sometimes I wonder if you really ARE non natives, such is your level of competence.

Not long ago my mother got (temporarily!) confused over the words "onion" and "union" when writing down a recipe...she said she was in a hurry (I don't believe her...it was a case of word blindness!). She was going to put some "unions" into her stew, or whatever she was cooking up. What a silly goose she was! ;-) Sorry, Mum!...

"Cooking"....another word with the double "O" sound with variations. Normally it's short and sharp: ['cuking] but in some northern English accents it's long and drawn out: ['cu:king]. Mick gave some good examples of inconsistencies.

Spell checkers can often give some hilarious results....like a hotel advertising a French widow in every bedroom.

[Kez/JWolf 6]

Well as far as I am concerned I speak English and my Husband and everyone else who comes from the US speak American.... there are enough diffrences to make them 2 diffrent languages...

Kez

[homesick_american 1]

Well as far as I am concerned I speak English and my Husband and everyone else who comes from the US speak American.... there are enough diffrences to make them 2 diffrent languages...

Kez

Well...to me that is an incredibly snotty attitude to have, not to mention the fact that you're dead wrong. Very very educated people called "linguists" disagree with you. British English and American English are not separate languages but are DIALECTS of the SAME language.

Also...if you Brits had not colonized 40% of the planet, you might not have to put up with people spelling your precious language slightly differently or speaking it with funny accents. However, you did. Deal with the consequences.

[Ladylethal 12]

Sheet and ###### are tough times for us brazilians, as well as b!itch and beach. I remember living with mormons as an exchange student and saying I loved the beach, and receiving stares of "OMG, she said a bad word!".

[Mags 112]

You say there is no excuse for native english speakers to have bad grammer.... does that include people who are dislexic..... and there are many words that are spelt diffrently here in America than they are in England so who is right??? the British, where the language came from or the Americans who have bastardized it???

Kez

I don't think of it as "bastardisation" at all and I'm English. Hubby and I have many discussion about our language differences, the spellings of words, the removal of certain vowels etc etc. I just think of it as the Americans taking the English language and making a version of "their own".

How many countries are there with variations on French? Of Arabic? There are many, many others as well. It is just human nature to make something their own and more personal.

[Nessa 23]

Sheet and b!tch are tough times for us brazilians, as well as b!itch and beach. I remember living with mormons as an exchange student and saying I loved the beach, and receiving stares of "OMG, she said a bad word!".

I have a hard time saying those too. They sound different to me, but it's like when I try it doesn't work.

You say there is no excuse for native english speakers to have bad grammer.... does that include people who are dislexic..... and there are many words that are spelt diffrently here in America than they are in England so who is right??? the British, where the language came from or the Americans who have bastardized it???

Kez

I loved that word. I'll start using it.

[Dakine 26]

While were at it!

What's the most common word you see misspelled on immigration forums.

How about RECEIVED?

What's the rule? i before e except after C?

Don't think that works all the time tho.

[Kez/JWolf 6]

Corruption or bastardization is a way of referring to certain changes in a language. The most common way that a word can be said to be corrupted is the change of its spelling through errors and gradual changes in comprehension, transcription, and hearing. This is especially common with words borrowed from another language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_(linguistics)

bastardization does not been it has been abused it just means it has changed..... and Yes America has basderdized the english language and it has become American English..... there is a diffrence..

Kez

[Mags 112]

Corruption or bastardization is a way of referring to certain changes in a language. The most common way that a word can be said to be corrupted is the change of its spelling through errors and gradual changes in comprehension, transcription, and hearing. This is especially common with words borrowed from another language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_(linguistics)

bastardization does not been it has been abused it just means it has changed..... and Yes America has basderdized the english language and it has become American English..... there is a diffrence..

Kez

Ironically, you used the American spelling of bastardization. Being English I'll stick to bastardisation.

j/k

[Marilyn. 340]

i have heard that English is one of the more difficult languages to learn because we have so many silent letters etc....