Did some textbook publisher take "losing" out of all their spelling books 15 years ago? I see it misspelled more often than spelled correctly these days.
> Did some textbook publisher take "losing" out of all their spelling books 15 years ago? I see it misspelled more often than spelled correctly these days.
I blame the emphasis on phonics over memorization, since “losing” has the “o” pronounced in a way more typical of “oo” and phonetically differs from “loosing” only in having a hard rather than soft “s”.
> I can sort of understand why people confuse 'lose' and 'loose' due to incorrect spellchecking, but 'loosing' isn't even correct English.
Yes, it is.
“loosing” : “loose” :: ”losing” (the verb form, not the adjective) : “lose”
If you understand mistakenly using “loose” in place of “lose” you should be equally able to understand using the gerund or present participle of “loose” in place of the gerund or present participle of “lose” (or the identically-spelled adjective), with the same single-“o” insertion transforming one valid English word to another.
That said, I bet a substantial majority of modern uses are meant to be losing, and a substantial fraction of what remains is meant to be "loosening". Maybe worth surfacing.
I blame the emphasis on phonics over memorization, since “losing” has the “o” pronounced in a way more typical of “oo” and phonetically differs from “loosing” only in having a hard rather than soft “s”.