Which is the preferred usage — “to stop a loophole” or “to fix a loophole”?
Answer
Neither. The verb you are looking for is close.
Just to demonstrate that that’s what people actually use, here are the stats from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the British National Corpus (BNC):
COCA BNC
[close] a loophole 23 3
[plug] a loophole 4 1
[stop] a loophole 0 0
[fix] a loophole 0 0
And for the sake of completeness, here’s a list of the top 25 collocations from both corpora for [v*] a loophole:
COCA BNC
1 FOUND A LOOPHOLE 23 BE A LOOPHOLE 3
2 IS A LOOPHOLE 16 IS A LOOPHOLE 3
3 CLOSE A LOOPHOLE 15 FIND A LOOPHOLE 3
4 'S A LOOPHOLE 11 EXPLOITING A LOOPHOLE 2
5 WAS A LOOPHOLE 9 HAVE A LOOPHOLE 2
6 FIND A LOOPHOLE 9 CLOSE A LOOPHOLE 2
7 CLOSING A LOOPHOLE 5 SAYS A LOOPHOLE 2
8 CREATED A LOOPHOLE 4 USING A LOOPHOLE 1
9 EXPLOITED A LOOPHOLE 4 SAY A LOOPHOLE 1
10 PLUG A LOOPHOLE 4 PLUG A LOOPHOLE 1
11 USED A LOOPHOLE 3 LEAVES A LOOPHOLE 1
12 LEFT A LOOPHOLE 3 CLAIMS A LOOPHOLE 1
13 EXPLOITING A LOOPHOLE 3 BECOMING A LOOPHOLE 1
14 FINDING A LOOPHOLE 3 CREATE A LOOPHOLE 1
15 CLOSES A LOOPHOLE 3 CLOSING A LOOPHOLE 1
16 DISCOVERED A LOOPHOLE 3
17 CREATING A LOOPHOLE 2
18 CONTAIN A LOOPHOLE 2
19 ADDRESS A LOOPHOLE 2
20 CREATE A LOOPHOLE 2
21 HAVE A LOOPHOLE 2
22 HAS A LOOPHOLE 2
23 OPEN A LOOPHOLE 2
24 USE A LOOPHOLE 2
25 SUPPORTED A LOOPHOLE 2
26 USING A LOOPHOLE 2
27 LEAVE A LOOPHOLE 2
As you can see, out of all the various things that various people like to do to various loopholes in various situations, only close and plug fit the bill in yours.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : darius , Answer Author : RegDwigнt
