General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Lose vs Loose [View all]MANative
(4,105 posts)But I won't; I'll just do the short version.
I serve as a volunteer editor for an amateur writers' website and correct this kind of error day in and day out. I even started writing a weekly tips column to cover some of the most egregious errors which writers were making over and over again, even after having been corrected (with detailed explanations) multiple times for the same mistake. I know that there are some people who have real learning disabilities which make these rules difficult to learn, but there are many for whom the constant errors are the result of intellectual laziness and lack of attention to detail. Apart from incorrect use of commas and semicolons, the most common errors are homonym/homophone word choice screw-ups. Drives me up a tree when people won't do the simple task of looking things up for correct usage when they are unsure. Proofreading is your readers' best friend.
Here's a great resource for writing and punctuation information: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/