I have an ‘‘I care about this alot’’ t-shirt.
I think you nailed it.
shakes fist at Ravenman for screwing up the poll
That’s pretty much my thoughts on it too. “Alot” is one word and means the same thing as “a lot” which is two.
+1
“Illiteracy” isn’t a justification?
Now, now…as I posted before, the word “word” can mean two different things. When we use the definition of “a collection of letters the standard form of written English today happens to set off by spaces”, then, yes, people who call it “one word” are the same people who write it “alot” – and, yes, these same people are writing it nonstandardly. In other words, in almost any social context, wrong. (They’re not quite “illiterate”, however.)
But, if we use a more linguistically subtle and profound definition of “word”, there is SOME justification for considering “a lot” to be a single “word”. (But, we still have to spell it “a lot”, if we want to be taken seriously.)
Clearly.
Can so. Just did, in fact.
They “mean” the same thing in terms of denotation – they’re both adverbial intensifiers of degree or amount – but they mean different things in terms of connotation. The first connotes “I am not a skilled speller”*, and the second connotes “I know how to write standard English.”
(*There was a thread in GD a couple months ago about what this really means – stupidity? carelessness? attitude of cultural relativity? a specific brain malfunction? Needless to say, there was little agreement about this.)
Not just adverbial, come to think of it. Functions as a noun, too, e.g., in “We have a lot riding on this decision.” Essentially, stands in for “a large amount” or “many things”.
I’m pretty sure “mucho” and “beaucoup” can be used in this way, as well.
Autolycus, You mentioned that there was a 300 yen bet on this question. Is English the first language of the person who thinks “a lot” is one word? English is my first language. I’m damn good at it, and I guarantee you that a lot is two words. In the expression a lot, lot is a noun, and a is an article. A lot is the opposite of a little, which is also two words.
Ravenman, thanks for letting us know you voted in error. That explains one of the three votes for “one word”.
Not being mentally retarded, I say it’s two words.
The word “lot” means “a large number or quantity”. Just because it often gets paired with an indefinite article doesn’t make “a lot” a single word any more than any other pair of words that frequently appear together.
To approach it another way, a “word” is “a written or printed character or combination of characters representing a spoken word”. A “space” is “a blank area separating words or lines”. As a “space” is “a blank area” rather than a “character”, it isn’t part of a “combination of characters” and thus any group of characters that also includes a space falls outside the definition of a “word”.
“Lot” isn’t always paired with “a”. Sometimes we say we have lots of guests. But sometimes they piss me off, and I say to hell with the lot of them.
So two words. Obviously.
…I had no idea there were T-shirts! Of course there are! I think I’m going to have to get one of these.
I think that there is a two-word noun usage and a one-word adverbial usage. I use the phrase like this: 1) A lot of people read The Straight Dope. 2) I read The Straight Dope alot.
No, the complete sentence would read, “I read The Straight Dope alot, but even so I am largely illiterate.”
I posted this same question when I first joined The Dope and the consensus seemed to be “two words.”
But I sure would like to know where the memory of seeing “alot” in my grade-school spelling book comes from.
^ I’m sure I learned this in school.
Well, it’s NOT majority popular usage. In particular, “alot” is especially prevalent on the Internet. If indeed it’s shifting, the shift is starting, not established. A lot of semi-literate yahoos on the Internet do not constitute the final authority on usage. If that were so, rogue would be spelled rouge, and we’d “hone in on” targets, and so forth.
I think everyone is still missing what the OP is asking…
Both he and his friend concede that the spelling is “a lot”.
The question is, because it is listed in the dictionary as a single entry, does that mean “a lot” (written that way, not ‘a lot’ vs ‘alot’) is one word or two?
There are a lot of dictionary entries defining two words. For example, pot pie or prepositional phrase.