Alot, abit, aswell - AIBU to ask where this habit has come from?

[CalishataFolkart]

They’re not recognised words. You have to beat the crap out of autocorrect in order to type them. I heard someone pronounce “aswell” as “azwull” the other day. It’s two separate words!

I know “albeit” and “nevertheless” exist and language evolves, but how has this come about? People my age (41) know that it is incorrect but have adopted it. What makes a person take up a spelling error? Fashion or insecurity that they have been getting it “wrong” all this time?

It’s fascinating and infuriating.

I never see the others but see 'alot' on here quite a bit. It's so silly.

YANBU. What surprises me is that there have been numerous threads mentioning this and it's still common to see on MN!

I console myself with this

Ignorance? None of my dyslexic friends do this.

Total pet peeve of mine. English is my second language, and these were drilled into us while learning. Along with 'definitely'.

Language evolves though. I think alot and abit are quite instinctive- if you were creating a language that’s probably how you’d write them? I would

It is bizarre to me how many people seem to have problems with 'a', which I would have thought the easiest word in the English language. Alot and abit are awful, but the one that really irritates me is awhile, because there IS a word awhile, it's just not what people usually mean to use. A while and awhile do not mean the same thing. One is a noun and the other is an adverb.

I think alot and abit are quite instinctive- if you were creating a language that’s probably how you’d write them?

But why? You might as well write atree or ahouse or abook.

Alot and abit are everywhere these days. Very strange.

@Passthecherrycoke

I guess it’s because what they mean isn’t one word. It reflects an amount, large or small. If you wouldn’t write “alargeamount” or “asmallamount” I don’t know why you would contract “a lot” or “a bit.”

I totally acknowledge language evolves. My question is more about the process. The link @cardibach gives is from 2010. So this is relatively recent but not so recent that there wasn’t a time before. Someone my age using these contractions had a pre-internet education. They have made a conscious decision to start using them.

I don’t really know how to answer that as I don’t find your examples to be in any way similar to “alot” Bridget