On 05/05/14 18:28, Paolo Bonzini wrote: > Il 05/05/2014 18:25, Eric Blake ha scritto: >>> > also make handler edge based to avoid loosing events, the same as >> s/loosing/losing/ >> >> (loose rhymes with goose and means the opposite of "tight"; lose rhymes >> with use and means the opposite of "gain" - it is a very frequent typo >> to see people put too many 'o's when they meant a variant of "lose") > > Unfortunately rhymes are useless to non-native speakers. :) A good way > to remember it is to think of 'loosen' and 'lost' rather than 'loose' > and 'lose', which are pronounced differently and hence easier to > associate with the right number of 'o's.
Wiktionary is also helpful. The articles frequently come with phonetic notation(s) and an audio sample. For example: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/loose enPR: loo͞s, IPA: /luːs/ http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lose enPR: lo͞oz, IPA: /luːz/ ^ ^ | | I'd say these are helpful; in this case even without audio samples (although the articles in question have them too). Other favorites of mine are "close" (as in, shut the door) vs. "close" (as in, is your house near) -- the two etimologies incur different pronounciations: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/close#Pronunciation kloʊz http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/close#Pronunciation_2 kləʊs ^ | (minimally these consonants are accessible to foreigners) Laszlo
