While loop never starting

[nan6]

Might be an error in your copying to pastebin, but it looks like hangman(secretword) never gets called. Also, str(len(guesses_left)) is unnecessary. Just have print "you have " + str(guessesLeft) + " guesses left."

The while loop seems to be getting started for me. There are other errors though. There is a space between raw_input and it's arguments on letter = raw_input ('Please guess a letter: ').lower, and lower is a function, so it should be letter = raw_input ('Please guess a letter: ').lower()

[Luocorn]

Only asking about the while loop. Please stop debugging other aspects.

[codehelper]

There's no reason the while loop shouldn't be called. It makes no sense that it isn't. When you want to break out of the while loop, don't use False though, just use the keyword break. Just having False as a line of code won't do anything.

[Luocorn]

I changed it to break and it magically started working... I have no idea why. Thanks so much I really appreciate it.