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Chris -- 2018-04-11
#1 2010-12-16 16:54:00
- Username
- Member
- Registered: 2010-12-16
- Posts: 3
alot for 'a lot'
To me, many of these eggcorns are, or could be, the case of English not being a first language for some people on the Internet, and their adapting to the need to communicate in English.
That caveat aside, I’d like to suggest this potential Eggcorn: “Alot.” Not to be confused with the phrase ‘A Lot.’ While i am sure some might not see the difference, i will supply a humorous and informative source to illustrate, no pun intended, my point here.
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2 … thing.html
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#2 2010-12-17 13:46:26
- patschwieterman
- Administrator
- From: California
- Registered: 2005-10-25
- Posts: 1680
Re: alot for 'a lot'
Welcome to the forum, Username. And thank you for the link to Hyperbole&1/2—the Alots are adorable.
I don’t think “alot” is an eggcorn—it doesn’t make some different kind of sense in context. I don’t know whether you’re referring to “a lot” in particular as being a creation of non-native speakers. But in any case, I can remember being in high school and having English teachers stress how running together “a lot” was about as horrible an error as one could make in English prose—and that was long before I’d heard of the Internet.
Native-speaker status has an interesting relationship to reshapings. I think you’re right in that some of the things listed here on the Database and Forum are more likely to be the product of non-native speakers. But there are others—I suspect that “a lot” is one of them—that seem to me more likely to be produced by native speakers.
Last edited by patschwieterman (2010-12-17 13:46:54)
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#3 2010-12-17 17:26:00
- yanogator
- Eggcornista
- From: Ohio
- Registered: 2007-06-07
- Posts: 237
Re: alot for 'a lot'
“A lot” even creates another generation of trouble. I’ve noticed frequently that people use “allot” for “a lot” and have concluded that they typed “alot” and the spellchecker changed it to “allot”, when what they actually wanted to say was “a lot”.
Bruce
“I always wanted to be somebody. I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
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#4 2010-12-17 19:58:15
- DavidTuggy
- Eggcornista
- From: Mexico
- Registered: 2007-10-11
- Posts: 2714
- Website
Re: alot for 'a lot'
Somewhere back in the distant pass we disgust the game of venery as described in the book An Exaltation of Larks . One of my favorite collective terms: “a lot of realtorsâ€.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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#5 2010-12-18 10:20:23
- Username
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- Registered: 2010-12-16
- Posts: 3
Re: alot for 'a lot'
Bruce – your mention of the spell checker issue is an interesting potential source for common errors as well. While map and trivia makers put in intentional errors as ‘copyright traps’ to detect any future infringements, these traps have been copied verbatim as if the information was canon. Could some spell checkers have used source materials that were/are from a potentially corrupted source.
DavidTuggy wrote:
Somewhere back in the distant pass we disgust the game of venery as described in the book An Exaltation of Larks . One of my favorite collective terms: “a lot of realtorsâ€.
David – I am left wondering if you intentionally made a lark in your response. Disgust or Discussed?
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#6 2010-12-18 11:28:51
- DavidTuggy
- Eggcornista
- From: Mexico
- Registered: 2007-10-11
- Posts: 2714
- Website
Re: alot for 'a lot'
Just messin’ around—larking off if you will—pay no attention! (The distant pass was purposeful too. I considered trying out the spelling “disgribedâ€, but had never collected it, just imagined it. For fun just now I looked it up, and sure enough:)
all of them looked like the ones she disgribed. if yal believe me can yal give me ideas on why i might have lost the gift …
... but did u know one of the last scriptures in the bible says that if anyone changes the word then they will suffer the plagues disgribed in the bible. ...
Bill Drew is right I also think it is a walking stick for an older gentleman and it is used the way he disgribed it.
Re the spell-checker thing, run a search (use the second̈ search engine, the Google search, from the eggcorn database home page rather than from the forum page) on “cupertinoâ€, and you will find a number of discussions of it.
*If the human mind were simple enough for us to understand,
we would be too simple-minded to understand it* .
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#7 2010-12-18 11:37:50
- Username
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- Registered: 2010-12-16
- Posts: 3
Re: alot for 'a lot'
DavidTuggy wrote:
Just messin’ around—larking off if you will—pay no attention
Ah. Very James Joyce of you. I will have a look in the search results for the “cupertino” results you suggest.
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