I probably should have been more precise with my discussion about “lose” and the [sic] example of “loose”. Whenever we mean that something has been lost, we should NEVER say, “I loose the hounds” or “I loosened the hounds” OR “The quarter back loosed his grip on the football” when LOST is meant!

The [sic] misuses are when people replace “lose” with “loose”. Again, I should have written, “... we NEVER ‘loose’ anything when ‘to lose’ is meant! They are two different verbs with different meanings and should not be confused. It’s certainly correct to say, “I let the dogs loose so they could run around (for example).” I maintain that it is unacceptable to say, “I loosed the dogs and I don’t know where they are” when “I lost the dogs .... ” is meant. Does this clarify the point?

I do appreciate the comments from readers. If nothing else, they make me aware that I must be more precise and probably should not have sent the letter out when I was so tired. It was after 2:30 a.m. (where I am) when I submitted the letter to the web and I wanted to get it out to see if it would go out properly (over the internet, that is).

For those who wrote, thank you. It means you’re paying attention and that’s better than being ignored. This reminds me of something I read recently about the “conspiracy of silence”. The phrase was coined by Sir Lewis Morris, a minor poet of the Victorian era. He wanted to be Poet Laureate in England but he never gained this honor. He claimed that critics were jealous of him and, as a result, damned his poetry when they bothered to mention it at all. He once complained at length to Oscar Wilde of this treatment, finally saying: “Oscar, there’s a conspiracy of silence against me. What shall I do?” Wilde replied simply: “Join it!”

The element [sic] is a Latin term that means, “thus, so”. Normally, it is supposed to be used within brackets, [sic] to show that a quoted passage, especially one containing some error or something questionable, is precisely reproduced, or written, just as the person who is being quoted wrote it. It is to be read exactly as it is shown because that’s the way it was written in the original quotation.

The first [sic] comes from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (September 6, 1998) sports section: “Even the best rookie backs loose [sic] their grip in the NFL”