You loose,
August 21, 2001 12:08 PM Subscribe
You loose, but it's not your fault.
I wonder if a winter edition of monopoly will come out because of this.
you meant to say "you lose"...
perhaps the grammar police are wrong on this one. i cannot verify, but the aug. 17 entry at cardhouse claims that loose is now acceptable for lose.
posted by donkeysuck at 12:29 PM on August 21, 2001
perhaps the grammar police are wrong on this one. i cannot verify, but the aug. 17 entry at cardhouse claims that loose is now acceptable for lose.
posted by donkeysuck at 12:29 PM on August 21, 2001
I only *wish* I was loose . . . oh wait, I've said too much.
posted by aramaic at 12:37 PM on August 21, 2001
posted by aramaic at 12:37 PM on August 21, 2001
perhaps the grammar police are wrong on this one...
i hope this is a joke.
posted by o2b at 12:39 PM on August 21, 2001
i hope this is a joke.
posted by o2b at 12:39 PM on August 21, 2001
no joke. i was incarcerated for having a dangling modifier.
posted by wantwit at 12:42 PM on August 21, 2001
posted by wantwit at 12:42 PM on August 21, 2001
Acceptable, to whom? The "National Dictionary Council"? Never heard of 'em. Dictionaries, at least in the United States, are not run by any sort of national council; each has its own editorial board. In any case, the descriptivist dictionaries that would be the ones to include this would do so with an asterisk that it is a mistaken spelling (like phase for faze). See the American Heritage article on usage controversies (the AHD is the top of the descriptivist heap).
I'm not a pedant or prescriptivist, in general. I'll allow things in casual speech recognizing that formal speech is another domain. Heck, I'll let ain't be a word. But I think that smart people should know when two close and overlapping words have different shades of meaning, and try to preserve that; and should know that there are certain common spelling cock-ups, and try to avoid them when possible.
(For example, you may have been told by a prescriptivist teacher, as most are in grade school, that judgment is correct, when that's merely a longstanding erroneous spelling given eternal life by the King James Version of the Bible. The obviously correct, and logical, spelling is judgement.)
Tiaka gets a pass, really, for all prior contributions. But jeez! Talk about a grating misusage. Y'know what I think is responsible? "D00d". Gotta be.
posted by dhartung at 1:10 PM on August 21, 2001
I'm not a pedant or prescriptivist, in general. I'll allow things in casual speech recognizing that formal speech is another domain. Heck, I'll let ain't be a word. But I think that smart people should know when two close and overlapping words have different shades of meaning, and try to preserve that; and should know that there are certain common spelling cock-ups, and try to avoid them when possible.
(For example, you may have been told by a prescriptivist teacher, as most are in grade school, that judgment is correct, when that's merely a longstanding erroneous spelling given eternal life by the King James Version of the Bible. The obviously correct, and logical, spelling is judgement.)
Tiaka gets a pass, really, for all prior contributions. But jeez! Talk about a grating misusage. Y'know what I think is responsible? "D00d". Gotta be.
posted by dhartung at 1:10 PM on August 21, 2001
i cannot verify, but the aug. 17 entry at cardhouse claims that loose is now acceptable for lose.
The Cardhouse line must be a joke. There is no such thing as the National Dictionary Council, as far as I can find. No such news story has appeared in the last 20 years in any publication indexed by Lexis-Nexis or Dow Jones. There is nothing in Google about it, except for the Cardhouse entry. There is nothing about it on Linguistlist.org. I did not see it in any of my daily customized news searches, five of which are designed to catch anything related to dictionaries, language, dialects, slang and translation.
posted by Mo Nickels at 1:14 PM on August 21, 2001
The Cardhouse line must be a joke. There is no such thing as the National Dictionary Council, as far as I can find. No such news story has appeared in the last 20 years in any publication indexed by Lexis-Nexis or Dow Jones. There is nothing in Google about it, except for the Cardhouse entry. There is nothing about it on Linguistlist.org. I did not see it in any of my daily customized news searches, five of which are designed to catch anything related to dictionaries, language, dialects, slang and translation.
posted by Mo Nickels at 1:14 PM on August 21, 2001
So then "Phase" isn't correct? Jeesh, I'll never get all these rules write. Was it i before e accept after c? No, because I no "their" is spelt with the e before i, and I don't sea a c anywhere.
*hmmm* I hate spelling. Why can't computors just take care of every thing.
posted by willnot at 1:19 PM on August 21, 2001
*hmmm* I hate spelling. Why can't computors just take care of every thing.
posted by willnot at 1:19 PM on August 21, 2001
I was actually thinking of saying 'You're a looser', because I got a chuckle from a line I've read on the onion - 'opening sprite bottle inadvertently makes man a looser', it didn't make the cut, and I was still concentrated on the word 'looser', and that's how that came about. Anyway, give me a break, English is not my language, I've only spoken it for several years. :)
posted by tiaka at 1:49 PM on August 21, 2001
posted by tiaka at 1:49 PM on August 21, 2001
The only misusage more grating than substituting loose for lose, is the bizarre but common "loosing." That one gets my hackles up more than using modifiers on the word "unique."
posted by machaus at 1:53 PM on August 21, 2001
posted by machaus at 1:53 PM on August 21, 2001
The American Heritage Dictionary (which, to my great joy, is one of the dictionaries used on dictionary.com) has a fascinating usage note on the use of modifiers on unique, and related notes on absolute, equal, perfect, and infinite. (No, I don't have anything useful to say about it, I'm just glad machaus prompted me to look it up.) (Stay on topic? What?)
posted by moss at 2:06 PM on August 21, 2001
posted by moss at 2:06 PM on August 21, 2001
I like judgment. Judgement is longer, and it's not like judgment is going to be confused for some other word.
posted by gleemax at 3:43 PM on August 21, 2001
posted by gleemax at 3:43 PM on August 21, 2001
If you're relying on Cardhouse as a primary news source, linguistic issues are probably the least of your problems.
posted by jjg at 3:45 PM on August 21, 2001
posted by jjg at 3:45 PM on August 21, 2001
Is it against the rules to sell your McD Monopoly tickets on eBay, say, to someone else who had the other two? Would that even work? Because I always thought that the pieces were spread out geographically for some reason.
posted by Laugh_track at 4:07 PM on August 21, 2001
posted by Laugh_track at 4:07 PM on August 21, 2001
...``Those involved in this type of corruption will find out breaking the law is no game,'' Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a statement...
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we have an Attorney General who talks exactly like Batman, circa 1950?
posted by Optamystic at 4:31 PM on August 21, 2001
Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we have an Attorney General who talks exactly like Batman, circa 1950?
posted by Optamystic at 4:31 PM on August 21, 2001
Even if you meant to say "You're a looser," you would still spell it wrong... "You're a loser."
I feel like I'm at slashdot!
As for playing the McD games, lots of people eat a lot more McD when these games are running to get the game pieces. Especially, believe it or not, the elderly. So, yes, it sucks as bad as the lottery, because your chance of winning anything significant is significantly small (like the Powerball mess).
But you're right... lotteries are a hidden tax on the poor (you don't see many rich people playing the lottery). McD games are just dumb.
posted by yarf at 6:54 AM on August 22, 2001
I feel like I'm at slashdot!
As for playing the McD games, lots of people eat a lot more McD when these games are running to get the game pieces. Especially, believe it or not, the elderly. So, yes, it sucks as bad as the lottery, because your chance of winning anything significant is significantly small (like the Powerball mess).
But you're right... lotteries are a hidden tax on the poor (you don't see many rich people playing the lottery). McD games are just dumb.
posted by yarf at 6:54 AM on August 22, 2001
Because I always thought that the pieces were spread out geographically for some reason.
If that were the case (say, Boardwalks are common and Park Places are rare on the west coast and vice versa on the east coast), then McDonald's would have no way of limiting how many prizes they give away. All it would take is one road trip and a lot of visits to McDonald's along the way to collect winning sets. No, each set has rare pieces which should have been randomly distributed across the country. So feel free to sell your game pieces on eBay, and if some idiot wants to buy them, great. Personally, if I got a rare piece, I'd just keep buying french fries at McDonald's until I completed the set.
posted by turaho at 7:40 AM on August 22, 2001
If that were the case (say, Boardwalks are common and Park Places are rare on the west coast and vice versa on the east coast), then McDonald's would have no way of limiting how many prizes they give away. All it would take is one road trip and a lot of visits to McDonald's along the way to collect winning sets. No, each set has rare pieces which should have been randomly distributed across the country. So feel free to sell your game pieces on eBay, and if some idiot wants to buy them, great. Personally, if I got a rare piece, I'd just keep buying french fries at McDonald's until I completed the set.
posted by turaho at 7:40 AM on August 22, 2001
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posted by yarf at 12:19 PM on August 21, 2001