Seen in the wild:
This sign so incensed my sister, she went back and took a picture just for us. See it? It asks, “Have alot of square footage?”
This is a simple one, folks. “Alot” is not a word, unless you are referring to that little town in India.
When talking or writing about a “considerable quantity or extent,” it is correctly written as “a lot,” two words.
If you need further memory aids, as this site humorously points out, “You shouldn’t write ‘alittle’ either.” (At least, I hope he meant it humorously. I can’t say I’ve ever seen “alittle” in writing, but maybe I’ve missed something?)
“Embiggen” is a perfectly cromulent word, though.
This reminds me of those Comcast ads: Save a load of benjamins, save a buck, save a lot. The “save a lot” one is my favorite because I had to see it about five times before it clicked. Heheh. Comcast is punny.
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Something else that bothers me is when I hear people using “Nother”.
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I’ll confess that I’ll sometimes write something like, “That’s a whole ‘nother issue,” but only sometimes, and I always make sure the apostrophe is there. Because, you know, at least I know that it’s not actually a word! (grin)
‘Alot’ has always been one of my pet peeves. Seeing that anywhere makes me wince; seeing it someplace allegedly professional like that sign makes me twitch all over.
That said, I seem to remember seeing somewhere that ‘alot’ had actually been added to a recent dictionary as an alternate version of ‘a lot’ and is therefore officially okay?
I’ve never seen ‘alot’ used as one word. My spell check doesn’t like it either. Not that I always trust my spell check. š
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