• BenVimes@lemmy.ca
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    9 hours ago

    If you were talking about neckties, maybe. Loosening social ties doesn’t sound natural, at least to me.

    • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
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      6 hours ago

      Lol, then that’s a you problem.

      That exact phrase is how it would be used, and has been used, in print, for decades

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 hours ago

      You can loose, or loosen a knot, or lasso, or if you are rather good with ropes nets and knots, you can actually do that to an entire net, give it more or less slack, grid density.

      I guess its just become far less common for people to have practical, hands on experience with knots and ropes… its pretty important if you want to moor a boat to a dock, or make your own fishing net as humans have done for millenia…

      Same goes for knitting, weaving, making clothes and garments of all kinds.

      Ever loosened a waistband, or tightened one?

      Less and less people have actual hands on experience with any of this, so I guess the metaophors/analogies aren’t as obvious anymore.

      Heck, loose, as a verb, just like that, also basically means ‘to throw’ or ‘to project away from you’.

      You loose an arrow, or a javelin.

      You let loose a hail of bullets, ie, throw them downrange, away from you.

      You loose a dog, to set it free, or perhaps to go run off and chase/attack something.

      Which is differenrt from losing a dog, which is when it fails to return from you loosing it.