You mean like “a whole nother”? 
Exactly. OP’s friend is wrong.
Uh, not me. 
See above for my posts on the two meanings of the word “word”. Comments welcome!
You’re right. I should have qualified my “everyone”!
Nope.
Your thinking is wrong.
A whole lot is too much, too much is a whole lot, same thing.
-Chico Marx
That’s a colloquialism, and as such, informal, probably regional, and subject to raised eyebrows in certain circumstances. If I consult my druthers, I’ll find your argument invalid.
“A lot” can’t be compared to “cannot”, because the ‘a’ is an article, referring to a non-specific amount of one, like ‘a poster’ as compared to 'the poster. It’s both possible and cromulent to refer to “the lot” or “a lot”, the former being specific (“I’ll take the lot.”), and the latter non-specific (“that’s a lot of hooey.”)
Cannot is unusual in that there are no matches in similar negative verbs - do not, shall not, will not, am not. RandomHouse Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary lists “cannot” simply as a form of “can not”, but one that has become, by far, the dominant usage. All this occurred in when spelling and orthography were still fluid. These days, only neologisms get a period of flexibility when popular usage determines the end form. “Email” left “electronic mail” behind a long time ago. Then it was a battle between “e-mail” and “email”. I think only some publications style and usage guides (Chicago Tribune?) use e-mail, and that will almost certainly change the next time they update.
“A lot” simply cannot, whatsoever, become a single word; common acceptance of other word combinations notwithstanding. Nevertheless, someone may ask why it should be besmirched, altogether, however still be met with strong opposition even if armed with the proper grammatical wherewithal.
Whatever.
Like, by saying instead “a lot of posters”…?
It doesn’t work like that, but if it did, wouldn’t it be the adverbial usage that would be two words, by analogy with “everyday/every day”? I read The Straight Dope every day; it’s an everyday activity.
I like our (apparently private) conversation a lot better than the one a lot of the other posters appear to be having.
Spelling “a lot” as “alot” is like spelling “a bunch” as “abunch” - they should be separate words (and, if you aren’t sure, spell check underlines both of the erroneous spellings here).
Then of course there is the world “allot”, which is something else entirely different and never was two separate words (which may be the source of confusion).
I like you, a lot, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter, newspaper, or any one of the aforementioned publications.
Well, they’re not THAT different – “allot” and “a lot” have the same origin, going not that far back at all (atall?).
EllenCherry…funny!
IvoryTowerDenizen…I hear you!
Oh, Jesus, that’s a big bugbear with me. The Thais have arbitrarily decided it’s “everyday” in every single instance no matter what. Even British chains like Lotus proudly proclaim on their large signs: “We’re open everyday.” :smack:
And all of those are one word, as they have a single meaning. If two words are put together and have a single meaning, they have become a single word. Yes, even if that word is separable.
I don’t understand why so many people are insisting on the more popular definition of “word” rather than the linguistic one. Normally this is the place where everyone says popular usage is wrong.
Eh, no reason the word “word” can’t have more than one meaning. The “thing we happen to set off by spaces” definition has its uses, too…such as, when we are teaching a child how to write.
There are few situations where the intended meaning of “word” is ambiguous, and even fewer where this matters. The semantic scuffle which inspired the OP to start this thread in the first place is only that.
I’d like to see a cite/link to this linguistic definition of “word” you’re referring to.
One, because we rarely see the word broken up and no one thinks of the bits as syntactically separate. You hear the phrase “a whole lot” about as often as “a whole other/nother”, and the word isn’t broken up except for that.
But of course the truth is slightly greyer than is/isn’t two words. As a rule, most categorization schemas are messy and words/not words are no exception. “A lot” has most characteristics of a single word and is lacking others.
“**Word. ** A unit of expression which native speakers intuitively recognize in both spoken and written language. The usual criterion…is that suggested by Leonard Bloomfield, who defined word as a ‘minimal free form’. I say ‘usual’ because there are still difficulties in arriving at a consistent use of the term…
…The most satisfactory criteria for word identification are syntactic…
…This still leaves problems, however. What do we do about fused words like can’t, isn’t, or dunno…? And what about small words such as a or the which are usually found tied to nouns…? All of this suggests there is a certain indeterminacy about the definition of a word.”
– Geoffrey Finch. 2000. *Linguistic Terms and Concepts. Pages *132-133.