Thursday, April 15, 2010

~i before e except after c~

Here's a little spelling lesson for you today. *grin*

(It doesn't have anything to do with "ie" or "ei" though, I just thought that would make a catchy title...)

Do you know the difference between lose and loose? There is a big difference, you know. I see this spelling rule broken all the time online, and it drives me bonkers. LOL And don't worry, it wasn't you. It was just something I was thinking about today!

When something gets lost you lose it. One o. So you lose weight, or you are working on losing weight.

When something is too big, it is loose. An easy way to remember this is that loose rhymes with goose. Or moose. So you lose weight and then your clothes are too loose. But you can't loose weight, because that doesn't make sense!

Trust me, I'm no candidate for a spelling bee! I have to spell check every time I use the word definitely because I can never remember how to spell it! And every time I write beautiful, I think, "bee-E-A-U-tiful". And it's and its are always confusing too (I've probably misused them dozens of times on my blog). But I have no trouble remembering the difference between lose and loose. ;)

ETA #1 - LOL I had to come back and add an "ing" to a word for the sentence to make sense. I probably have other mistakes in this post too. Maybe I should skip the spelling lessons. Hahaha

ETA #2 - Misuse of "you're" pointed out to me. Good grief, this is my just due for posting this...I shall never point fingers again. ;-)

3 comments:

Charity said...

I always have problems with *definitely.* Thanks for explaining *lose* and *loose,* though. That's one I hadn't figured out. One of my pet peeves is *your* and *you're* but I know I've mixed them up myself a time or two on my blog. :)

Jeannie said...

Thanks for the tip, I, too,always have to think which one to use and I do it wrong I'm sure. How about tips on choice, choose, & chose?

Tammy said...

Charity, the misuse of "your" and "you're" are words I notice too.

Aunt Jeannie, "choose" rhymes with "muse" (more or less, not exactly) and "chose" rhymes with "hose". :-) Does that help?