Alot.

[Ottika]

People writing 'alot' instead of 'a lot'.

What's going on with this? I noticed it years ago, often on Reddit for some reason, but it appears to have become much more common. I think it is a young thing, in that older communities tend not to do it? I have also observed it more often in communities that are mostly male.
I could definitely be wrong, though!

Not approaching this as a pedant exactly, but I am curious as to why it is so common now. Are reading and spelling skills deteriorating, changing, or a kind of.....defiance??
I find it difficult to relate to because I would presume most people who have had even very basic schooling would know that they are two separate words.

Or could it be that phone and device software isn't suggesting a correction?
I do wonder how much software has an impact on this kind of thing in general.

In Scotland they write "ano"

My pet hate is "would of" etc

I think that common mistakes become even more widespread because seeing them online reinforces people's assumption that they're correct. Pre-internet, people were exposed to much, much less in the written word, and much if that would have been edited and published.

Alot, abit, afew (I had to fight with my predictive text with all of those). It's everywhere along with people writing noone for no one.

This will help: https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html?m=1

Hiding this thread.

Yes! I love this so much my DH made me a cuddly Alot.

Yes, this is interesting.
I do think that repeated exposure to it might influence it's spread. Although it does make me wonder if they become confused when reading the 'correct' version.

I also think it is inappropriate to shame people for this, so discussing it without judgement is rare. Thanks for your thoughts!

What I wonder is why they type 'alot' but not 'afew', for example.

I think that people spend a lot of time on social media these days and it's spreading through that.

It doesn't help that businesses often have spelling and grammar mistakes in their advertising now as well. Poor spelling and grammar is rife.

I don't think people are reading books as much as they used to. They're not familiar with the correct spelling of words.

Kids in school too busy stabbing each other to take notice in lessons.

My kids were taught

a chair
a table
a bed
A LOT

Kids in school too busy stabbing each other to take notice in lessons.

I'll think about it in abit

I can see that it will be normalised on sites such as reddit, social media, etc, but even if people are reading less books, they must still surely have a good deal of exposure to 'a lot' in everyday life?

Reddit was overwhelmingly full of this, I am guessing younger males? I occasionally read some humour style subs and it pops up....a lot.

I know people get pedantic about 'could/couldn't care less' but that does seem easy to mistake, really. But confusing two words into one word is a bit more unusual.

They’re reading fewer books …

Don't get me on 'noone' either. See it a lot on here. It is definitely a younger educated person's term.

'No' is a word and 'one' is a word. If you want to use one word then try 'nobody'.

My tablet autocorrects it to alot, so even if I type a lot, it ends up as alot, or even another (yep, I can't explain that either). I REALLY hate my autocorrect.

People not knowing the difference between lose and loose is the one that annoys me the most.

Just checked my phone and laptop, neither suggest 'alot' for me.
Perhaps the software is algorithmic (I have no idea how that works btw!) and is picking up that 'alot' is used often?

I think many of the mistakes are understandable, I could see someone mistaking 'no one' for noone but not when you see it written down. Obviously is looks like it ought to rhyme with moon.

I am always interested in how things form like this, and the statistics, etc. I very rarely see such persistent mistakes on MN, for instance. I wonder what it might be about Reddit that is so different?

Well online, if my phone's missed out a letter here or there or autocorrected incorrectly I tend to leave it as long as the message is still being communicated. I obviously don't take the same approach at work but I find when my phone is running out of charge autocorrect does weird and wonderful things

@Ottika you (a mass noun) and yous (wtf) lose ( dont lose your purse) and loose ( tie the lace loosely) have people stopped going to school?

Isn't 'yous' a Liverpudlian thing? As in 'more than one of you', not a mistake or error but intentional slang/dialect I think?

As in 'are yous coming to the shop?'

Just checked my phone and laptop, neither suggest 'alot' for me.

It doesn't suggest, it overrides and you/I don't notice it until it's too late. Although I've got a screenshot for its suggestions for alot 🙄

Teacher here and I think it will migrate into general usage (dictionary) in the next 50 years. I hate it!

Major thanks to the pp for the alot cartoon!