Why are the words "lose" and "choose" written differently and pronounced the same way?

Question

I do know that there isn't only one pronunciation for syllables, and I also know that there isn't only one way to write a phoneme, but this intrigues me a lot.

Lose is spelled with only one O, and it's frequently misspelled with two Os.

Choose is spelled with two Os, and it's frequently misspelled with one O.

One of the forms of the past tense of "to choose" is "chose", which is pronounced very differently from "lose", even though both words share the same vocals and ending syllable.

I'd like to see an explanation for this. Even on origin, or something I'm missing out here.

Note: for me, double Os seems way more logical, as every time I read "lose", it seems a little weird.

Answer 1

I hope I can answer at least part of your question, and with luck perhaps assuage your frustration to some small degree. You asked about origins:

Lose comes to us from Old English

ORIGIN Old English losian [perish, destroy,] also [become unable to find,] from los [loss.]

Choose comes from the same language:

ORIGIN Old English cēosan, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch kiezen.

In Old English, losian would have sounded something like LOH-zee-ahn, while cēosan would have sounded like CHAY-oh-zahn. Both these words are in infinitive form, and would have different conjugations.

In Middle English, losian became losien and cēosan became chesen or chosen. Now, the double-o construction, seen in words like choose and boot, originally indicated a long vowel sound, which itself originally meant literally a long vowel sound, i.e. one that was held for a longer period of time. There weren't any markings to indicate duration, so an extra letter was added to indicate that a word like boot should actually be pronounced the way we pronounce boat today — exactly analogous to German's pronunciation of das Boot, which does not sound like something one wears on one's feet.

But there was another Middle English word for lose, which was leosen (from OE lēosan), and it's not clear if our current word has a single ancestor. Possibly a merging of the two histories resulted in the pronunciation we have today.

Now, I wish I could draw a clear line for you that brings us from past to present and illustrates why today choose and lose and even whose perfectly rhyme but dose and moose do not, and why we pronounce close (meaning near) differently from close (meaning to shut), but the plain truth is I'm just not that smart. English pronunciation is quirky and peculiar in ways that defy description, much less understanding. If there were anything at all to be done about this, we would have an intolerable situation on our hands; but as there is nothing we can do about it, the situation must be endured. Be comforted by the belief that all these pronunciations will change in time — although to what is not at all clear.

I'll leave you with an old joke, and hope you can put aside your frustration long enough to laugh at the pronunciation and spelling mess we have inherited.

Q. How do you spell fish?

A. Ghoti! Just use the gh from rough, the o from women, and the ti from action (or ration or station or — well, you get the idea).

[Source for the above etymologies: Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, by Eric Partridge]

Answer 2

The word lose seems to have undergone an irregular phonetic development. That happens sometimes, although not very often (other examples are broad and sew).

The reconstructed pronunciation of the Old English form "losian" has a short vowel /o/ in the first syllable. In this context, that sound would be expected to develop to the "long o" sound of the word "goat". The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggests that the pronunciation with the "oo" sound of "goose" is due to influence from the word "loose", and also furthermore says that "Many dialects have the phonetic form normally descending from the Old English verb. The Scottish form loss is probably evolved from the past tense and past participle lost."

The development of the vowel in choose seems to be fairly complicated. The Old English vowel is supposed to have been a long diphthong "ēo". This sound usually corresponds to "ee" in modern English, and the OED says "In the present stem, Old English céose, early Middle English chéose, normally gave chēse, cheese, which survived to c1500, and later in Scots". But for some reason, it became "oo" in the ancestor to modern standard English. The verb shoot, in Old English scēotan, seems to have undergone a similar development.

Answer 3

Simple: because standardised English spelling was not arrived at by any kind of central authority that took a rational view of how to spell the language. Instead it simply happened (eliding over all the forces that contributed to this event) that spellings started settling down in the Elizabethan era, and continue to evolve.

Basically, all spellings are the result of a stochastic mutation process (massive simplification), which gives rise to these sorts of things.