Mindy Memories: Public Service Announcment

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Ahem.

There is no such word as "alot." However using "a lot" in a sentence is fine.

Thank you.

At 10:50 PM, claudia said…

Using a lot, as in several of something, is okay? When I was in some grade "a lot" of years ago, our English teacher would not let us use a lot, unless of course, we were talking about a piece of property. Maybe she was just bored with the hundreds of sentences we turned in using no imagination to describe the bunches of things we wrote about. HMMM...all these years I have been avoiding a lot, like the plague!
At 7:21 AM, Faith Ann said…

LOL "alot" is a pet peeve of mine too.
At 8:57 AM, Mindy said…

Well, there's usually a more descriptive way to say it than, "a lot," but it's accurate grammar, rather than "alot," which drives me insane. :)

I was taught the same in high school English, too. One of my teachers would take points off if you used "a lot" too often, and we also weren't allowed to use "be" verbs in our thesis and only use them sparingly throughout the rest: am, is, are, was, were, been, being, be. Of course, you can't really write without ever using them, but action verbs work better.
At 2:54 PM, Suz said…

"alot" makes me crazy.

And we weren't allowed to use any "be" verbs if we could help it either. I think it made me a better writer. When I bother to (professionally/scholastically) write anymore, anyways.