Because your pronounce them backwards.

"Loose" is a short word that ends sharply, but "lose" is a long word that slowly peters out.

They should be the other way around imo.

If we're allowed to make modifications here then it should really be lose => looze and loose => luce

Fun fact — English did not have formalized spelling prior to the printing press

So, technically we are allowed to make modifications! We just can't expect others to adhere to our modifications :)

I think that would make "loosely" not work out. Lucely/lucly catch the hard C there. I'm good with loozing/loozer, looks kind of funny though.

	▲	Zambyte an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I would not pronounce lucely with a hard C
	▲	butlike an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Lucezly

dtj1123 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This was also the way I felt before I was introduced to "the magic e" (spoiler: it still doesn't make any sense)

	▲	sd9 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Wow, "magic e" just transported me back to primary school. And I had a little heart flutter fearing that I wouldn't be able to remember/explain it today.

garbawarb 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Loose rhymes with moose, noose, caboose...

evanjrowley 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Now that you frame it that way, I'm surprised "lose" didn't evolve to be pronounced like "Lowe's"

	▲	abustamam 30 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I hate discussions like these because then I start reading words in weird ways and then I look at words as a random jumble of letters that don't even seem like words anymore. Is that just me? :)

parineum an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Since English has a glut of loaner words, I'd assume the two words just originate from different languages.