Lose or loose, confusion over spelling

To me it's paid/payed.

As a teacher in Essex I got really irritated by kids (and parents) writing “would have” instead of “would’ve”.
“Would of” just doesn’t make sense, and it would have been more elegant to write “would have” wouldn’t it!

crazyH

Without being self-congratulatory - I never get confused with words - confused with other things for sure, but not with words😂

I'm always saying the wrong worm

A lot depends on where and when people are taught. I can spell, and mental arithmetic is second nature to me, but nothing beyond that for the latter. I was educated in Scotland during the late 40s and early 50s, and it was hammered into us, literally. Are children taught times tables now?

One word flummoxes me, and that is practise/pracice. Any bright suggestions please?

I’d love to know if anyone has used Vintage Cash Cow - all views welcome …. good, bad, indifferent? Thanks..

I think one of the reasons you might be seeing more incorrect spellings/attributions to the words lose/ loose is simple … * interactive text!
I often fire off a text without checking the find that interactive text has ‘ corrected’ my spelling incorrectly ( tho occasionally usefully!)

7hgu

I’d love to know if anyone has used Vintage Cash Cow - all views welcome …. good, bad, indifferent? Thanks..

7hgu
The best thing is to start your own thread, otherwise your question is likely to get lost. I’m actually interested in the answers you get.
Hopefully my spelling is all correct here.

I get confused with spelling so I try to find a different word to suit the phrase

on the same thread - look at people who get confused over hanging. I was always told that a person is hung and a picture is hanged

What confuses me is the choose yet lose and the chose yet loose.
Why are two words with the "oo" sounded so differently. I was good at English well into adulthood yet seems to me relatively recently these words became complicated in their sounds.

Charleygirl5 To my simple mind practise is to do something, a verb, eg practise the piano, practise football. Practice is a noun, eg the chiropractor has his practice down the road. The doctors' practice is in the surgery where they all practise medicine. Hope I'm not confusing you even more.

Are children still taught to spell? Or how to use a dictionary?

Since the 1960s, it has been assumed by many teachers and parents that if children hear the correct pronunciation and read the correct spelling of words often enough, they will automatically speak and spell correctly.

My experience, both as a teacher, and as as a learner, have shown me very clearly that this so-called natural method, just does not work.

Those linguists that thought it would, overlooked the fact that for the first five or six years of our lives, we are continually corrected for slips in our first language.

Second languages are subjected to corrections in the school-room, but not when you are using them in the "real" world, as it is considered impolite to correct an adult or even a teenager. Bilingual children are corrected in both their languagues, but , there too, this process tends to stop when a child is about twelve.

I suspect that the tendency to confuse similar words is due to spelling not having been considered important.

suelld

I think one of the reasons you might be seeing more incorrect spellings/attributions to the words lose/ loose is simple … * interactive text!
I often fire off a text without checking the find that interactive text has ‘ corrected’ my spelling incorrectly ( tho occasionally usefully!)

I think you mean predictive text where the mobile/computer or whatever thinks it knows what word you mean or plan to use. Yes sometimes it will just “offer” suggested spelling but in my experience seems to be on another planet with the wildest ideas of its own.

Charleygirl5

A lot depends on where and when people are taught. I can spell, and mental arithmetic is second nature to me, but nothing beyond that for the latter. I was educated in Scotland during the late 40s and early 50s, and it was hammered into us, literally. Are children taught times tables now?

One word flummoxes me, and that is practise/pracice. Any bright suggestions please?

If the end of practice is ice, that is a noun like ice. If it's ise, that's not a noun so it must be the verb. That's the way I was taught anyway. Same with advice and advise etc. Maybe that helps?

4forallweknow thanks, simple. I know the difference between a noun and a verb. Although it was cruel, I think the Scottish system of teaching was the best. At the age of 5, I was trotting to a private library with my father to choose a book or two for a penny each.

AuntieE

Are children still taught to spell? Or how to use a dictionary?

Since the 1960s, it has been assumed by many teachers and parents that if children hear the correct pronunciation and read the correct spelling of words often enough, they will automatically speak and spell correctly.

My experience, both as a teacher, and as as a learner, have shown me very clearly that this so-called natural method, just does not work.

Those linguists that thought it would, overlooked the fact that for the first five or six years of our lives, we are continually corrected for slips in our first language.

Second languages are subjected to corrections in the school-room, but not when you are using them in the "real" world, as it is considered impolite to correct an adult or even a teenager. Bilingual children are corrected in both their languagues, but , there too, this process tends to stop when a child is about twelve.

I suspect that the tendency to confuse similar words is due to spelling not having been considered important.

Were you still teaching during the introduction and implementation of the literacy strategy?
This page will give you the 2025 papers for the end of Key Stage 2 (age 11).
www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-stage-2-tests-2025-english-grammar-punctuation-and-spelling-test-materials.

I'm surprised the number of times I see the word " draws" instead of 'drawers' (eg a chest of). That terminology appeared several times on GN recently.
The other one is " I'm going to lay down" instead of lie down . You lay something down ....eg, " I'll lay this on the table.

Are children taught to spell? No, like map reading It's a lost art form, or skill at any rate.

I agree with your post Babamaman but please tell me what's a tart TA?

I used to care about accurate spelling and grammar. My DC would show me their creative stories to read but I couldn't see beyond the spelling errors.

Then I read Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue which is both amusing and informative about spelling and grammar.
I relaxed after that.

Here's the cover

AuntieE

Since the 1960s, it has been assumed by many teachers and parents that if children hear the correct pronunciation and read the correct spelling of words often enough, they will automatically speak and spell correctly.

My sister was really annoyed by that when her children came home with uncorrected spellings. Her attitude was that if you spell a word incorrectly often enough it will become ingrained.

I assured her that we were still rigorously teaching spelling, but the waffle fed to us by experts was that if children saw too many corrections they would be unwilling to write at all.
Many schools ignored that, but obviously, many didn’t.

To try and repair the damage, there was Letterland

Then of course phonetic spelling which helps many, but not all children,
e.g. Jolly Phonics with its tricky words for those words that don’t fit any pattern.
Read Write Inc whole reading writing and spelling scheme and Letters and Sounds.
I think there are over 40 published schemes approved by the government, but they should all follow the phases for sounds being taught.
Of course the famous If you don’t use it, you lose it. statement is especially true with reading and writing. If you don’t read, you don’t extend your vocabulary or acquire visual memory of how words are spelled.
If you don’t use your writing skills, you may not remember how to spell.

Same here crazyH- I often think i should have been a proof reader and get paid for it🤔😆

Celeste22

I'm surprised the number of times I see the word " draws" instead of 'drawers' (eg a chest of). That terminology appeared several times on GN recently.
The other one is " I'm going to lay down" instead of lie down . You lay something down ....eg, " I'll lay this on the table.

But Celeste22 that implies that the generation who use GN can’t spell either.
Weren’t we taught spelling?

For toetoe, it never WAS "presAnt", and I first went to skool in the 50s. It's "presEnt" for both meanings. It's also "presEntable" if you look passably tidy.

In general, the standard of education has fallen off a cliff in the last 30 or 40 years, with some lousy English (see just about any F'book debate?!), and the History & Geography levels have also gone down the drane.

There** seems to be a widespread surge to blame 'dyslexia' (funny how they seem able to spell the word quite well?!) though the occurrence of that affliction seems vastly higher than when I was little? People also widely blame the predictive text on their** phones (**sorry, that's possibly they're or there, all kwite opshonal these days), though I'm unclear why that issue stops folk checking the message before sending it?

Exactly Mollygo. As we always said in the National Writing Project in the early 80s, "Writing is a craft, you learn to write by writing".
I remember being shocked in my first teaching post, by the very poor standard of literacy of letters from parents. I don't think there was ever a golden age of literacy.
I also wonder how many people who looked at the link to the Key Stage 2 tests got the fronted adverbial right. 😂😂😂

Delene100

I get confused with worse and worst.

‘Worse’ is the opposite of ‘better’
‘Worst’ is the opposite of ‘best’ - both ending in -st, which may help you to remember.

DrWatson

For toetoe, it never WAS "presAnt", and I first went to skool in the 50s. It's "presEnt" for both meanings. It's also "presEntable" if you look passably tidy.

In general, the standard of education has fallen off a cliff in the last 30 or 40 years, with some lousy English (see just about any F'book debate?!), and the History & Geography levels have also gone down the drane.

There** seems to be a widespread surge to blame 'dyslexia' (funny how they seem able to spell the word quite well?!) though the occurrence of that affliction seems vastly higher than when I was little? People also widely blame the predictive text on their** phones (**sorry, that's possibly they're or there, all kwite opshonal these days), though I'm unclear why that issue stops folk checking the message before sending it?

Just out of interest, what genre of writing from thirty or forty years ago are you comparing with Facebook?