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by ses1984 52 days ago
I’m guessing most cases of loose/lose switch happen when English isn’t someone’s first language.
2 comments

In my experience, this mistake happens all the time for native English speakers born in the US.
Indeed, but other languages have been around forever whereas I've seen this particular misspelling a ton in the last year and rarely before that.
I've noticed it for much longer than a year ago, it's been a thing for awhile now. Especially online, which may lend credence to the idea of it occurring most with those who didn't grow up writing English, but even with native writers it seems to be occurring more and more.
I haven’t noticed the same trend.
Search the word "loose" in recent HN comments, it's become quite common.

> all he'll breaks loose (a doubly amusing one): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47835177

> So Ukraine should not necessary win, it should mainly bleed Russia and not loose. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47827489

> They are de-risking by spending more, which is a loose-loose for the customers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47826823

Plus this thread, and that's just in the last 24 hours!

You may be completely right, but these examples are pretty meaningless without context, like what is the rate of lose/loose confusion per x words over time.