Loose or Lose?
There’s no formula for what I do,” said King, who added that if he tried to analyze and formulate his approach to writing, he might loose his touch.
The word “loose” in this quotation from a site about publishing is incorrectly used. King might lose his touch.
The words lose and loose are often confused. Here are examples to illustrate their uses.
“Lose” is a verb.
The Cubs didn’t lose today’s game.
They lost the one yesterday.
They have lost three in a row.
I don’t like it when they are losing.
The word “loose” can be used as more than one part of speech.
“Loose” can be a verb:
Loose the dog from its chain.
The man loosed his pit bull on the intruder.
We have loosed all the raccoons from the traps.
The activists are loosing the monkeys from the lab.
“Loose” can be an adjective:
He prefers to wear loose clothing when exercising.
This screw is loose.
“Loose” can be an adverb:
The rancher turned the horses loose.
One more thing: The two words have different pronunciations. The “s” in “lose” has the sound /z/. The “s” in “loose” has the sound /s/.
Maeve on July 10, 2007 
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This seems so very, very, very third grade. Professional writers, or hope-to-be professional writers, need reminding of this? Sigh….
Alice, our audience is not composed 100% of professional writers. We write for people that want to improve their writing skills, whether we talk about bloggers, students, foreigners that are learning English as a second language, and so on.
Sometimes even professional writers get stuff wrong though. The quotation mentioned on the article, for instance, was probably written by some professional copywriter.
Excellent tip. I especially like the pronunciation reminders.
Two thumbs up, Maeve!!
Thank you very much for this.
I’m engaged in the English language a lot, but not being a native speaker things like that get overlooked easily.
Alice, you would be surprised at how many professional writers do indeed need reminding of very simple grammar, spelling and usage rules.