I haven’t done a language rant in awhile, so here goes.
The offense of the day is:
“Alot”
This spelling abomination is used by people to mean “a lot”. It’s a mistake I didn’t see years ago, even by people with generally atrocious spelling and grammar. It apparently is a fairly “new” mistake, that I’m seeing more and more. And what makes “alot” different from other language errors, is that I’m seeing it used more often by people who generally don’t make frequent spelling and grammar mistakes.
I’ve often wondered why people in increasing numbers have started to run the two words “a lot” together. First, let’s look at the definition of the phrase “a lot”.
A lot
Very many, a large number; also, very much. For example, A lot of people think the economy is declining, or Sad movies always made her cry a lot. It is sometimes put as a whole lot for greater emphasis, as in I learned a whole lot in his class. It may also emphasize a comparative indication of amount, as in We need a whole lot more pizza to feed everyone, or Mary had a lot less nerve than I expected. [Colloquial; early 1800s]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
Is it that they don’t understand what a word “lot” means? Here’s a couple of definitions of the word “lot” that relate to the phrase “a lot”:
Lot
a piece of land having the use specified by the attributive noun or adjective: a parking lot; a used-car lot.
a distinct portion or parcel of anything, as of merchandise: The furniture was to be auctioned off in 20 lots.
a number of things or persons collectively: There’s one more, and that’s the lot.
Often, lots. a great many or a great deal: a lot of books; lots of money.
I’m guessing that they’re confusing “a lot” with the bona fide word, “allot”, which is a verb that has an entirely different meaning from “a lot”:
Allot
to divide or distribute by share or portion; distribute or parcel out; apportion: to allot the available farmland among the settlers.
to appropriate for a special purpose: to allot money for a park.
to assign as a portion; set apart; dedicate.
Personally, I think the rise of “alot” has quite a bit to do with the fact that increasingly fewer people read regularly, so they are spelling “by ear”, rather than imitating what they’ve seen in print.
So ends the spelling lesson of the day.
libertine
That’s one of my pet peeves. But the common language mistake that really goes down my throat sideways is the use of an apostrophe + S to turn a noun into a plural.
I see a lot (ha! see? got it right!) of that where I live, and I have to wonder about the competence of the English teachers of previous generations. They haven’t changed the English language that much over the last few decades, have they?
Aaaargh. I hate this.
But something I think bugs me more is the incorrect use of ‘of’ instead of ‘have’ (e.g. “I should of gone to the store”)- again, as you said, it sounds like people are spelling more by ear instead of via learning from text.
And then there’s ‘allways’ instead of ‘always’… >.<
And “loose” vs. “lose”…
“I’m going to loose my mind.” – Argh!
*runs to go see if I created this error, and thus this rant*
Er, um, well, sometimes, we spell things correctly, but our keyboard sticks or omits a space or gives us too many letters, or some other gremlin- induced effect, and since most people don’t proof read anymore, it gets overlooked— also spell check is becoming a bad habit for a lot of people.
Yeah, this one is pretty annoying. So is “atleast”. It’s “at least” you goober! There’s two words there not one.