The idea of loismo is used in grammar to name the use of the forms “los” and “lo” of the unstressed pronoun instead of “les” and “le” for the indirect masculine object of thing or person. This characteristic appears in certain variants of Spanish.
“Le” (and the plural “les” ) are personal pronouns that usually represent the indirect object, while “lo” (and “los” ) are generally used for the direct object when there is no loismo.
Loismo arises from an anti-etymological use of unstressed pronouns corresponding to the third person . In this framework, it constitutes a defect similar to leism and laism .
Of course, loism must be differentiated from leism and laism. Thus, leismo consists of incorrectly using “les” and “le” instead of “lo, los, la, las”. In this way, whoever falls into that would say “I love my wife very much”, when the correct thing would be to say “I love my wife very much”.
Laism, on the other hand, consists of making an inappropriate use of “la” and “las” instead of “le” and “les”. Thus, whoever carries it out would say “I gave her a motorcycle”, when the correct thing is to say “I gave her a motorcycle”.
Let's see an example . According to grammatical rules, the expression “I asked them to stay silent” is incorrect, since the appropriate thing would be “I asked them to stay silent.” However, in some Latin American areas it is common to resort to loismo and use the first form.
The phrase “When they found the documents, they set them on fire” can be found as “When they found the documents, they set them on fire.” In any case, the correct thing to do from a grammatical point of view is to write or pronounce “they set them on fire” and not “they set them on fire” , which constitutes another case of loism.
Other examples of loism are the following:
-“I have finished writing the text you asked me for, take a look at it when possible.” The correct thing would be to say: “I have finished writing the text you asked me for, take a look at it when you can.”
-“The students of the 4th grade class were petrified when the teacher told them that they had a surprise exam.” This phrase is clearly a loism and the correct thing would be to say: “The students of the 4th grade class were petrified when the teacher told them that they had a surprise exam.”
“Manuel didn't like the plan his girl proposed for the weekend.” Without it, the correct thing would be: “Manuel didn't like the plan his girl proposed for the weekend.”
Sometimes loismo is a consequence of the difficulties in adopting Spanish. In the Andean region, the Spanish language maintains a close link with languages such as Aymara and Quechua , which do not distinguish gender and mark number differently. So it is normal to hear comments like “I don't know his parents.”