What is an alot?

[ankhor]

This is alot. $53 million in cash found in a raid on a drug lord's home. That's alot of money!

Well, what do they mean drugmoney?
I just needed some wallpaper.

[iamtheblues]

From Wiktionary.
Saludos,
Bob.

[morphonius_821]

Ross:
I wonder weather he sleeps on that... it looks like a king size...
I bet he started a small pile under the mattress and then kept squirreling away...

iamtheblues:
Sorry: I know I like to use that word all the time.

Weather or not this word is accepted as official or not there is certainly no shortage of people using it.
I can understand how this would frustrate you, but I (and probably many others) didn't even know it was not a real word.

But they do add new words to the dictionary every year
http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/newwords/?view=uk
Try dropping a few of these into your casual conversation...

"Unfortunately" the Queen's English is not a mandate on society for the purposes of everyday talk...but i will try to refrain from using this non word when typing from now on...
P.S. And don't worry my apostrophes are under control .

[ss-kalm]

........And don't worry my apostrophes are under control .

Mine aren't, I'd need a lead to control them, they're always wandering off on their own.

Just as an aside, there are three ways to spell weather ....

Weather - As "It's a nice day today".
Whether - As in "whether or not".
Wether - "A castrated ram"

When I found out the last one, I became a little more careful with my spelling.

[covoxer]

LOT - Polish Airlines.

[zaphodeist]

Wot? An Allott ...

[Soquili]

Let us not overlook the fact that it may simply be one of the vBulletin keyboard glitches.

You know the one where you typed your and all you get is you. vBulletin ate the r.

In the case of alot it ate the space.

[handrawn]

a town in India

[iamtheblues]

@ Bill: vBulletin has never eaten my space, but seems to have a habit of eating certain members' spaces on a regular basis (and inserting rogue Ls).

@ SteveJ and others: My question was, "What is an alot?" not "what is a lot?"
I already knew what a lot is, and a lot more, besides.

@ morphonius_821: [quote]"...the Queen's English is not a mandate on society for the purposes of everyday talk..." - I could not let this pass without comment.

In conversation that takes place on these boards and any writing in general, it is important to use correct spelling and grammar, not because they are rules that must be obeyed, but because the written word is only a signpost to the spoken one, by which we communicate when it is not possible to use speech. Therefore care must be taken to ensure that we convey the exact meaning of what we write. When someone speaks it is not possible to hear the spelling mistakes and gramatical errors that may be in the speaker's head when uttering the words "a lot" "weather", "whether" and so on.

If I write (in haste) "ether" instead of "either" as an unintentional typo, it will cause the reader to pause and think about "ether" as it will be out of context in the sentence I am writing. This would hopefully, be a rare error, and is why proof readers exist. If I re-read what I have written, or proof read my own work, I will, more often than not, correct the typo. If the typo were to remain uncorrected, then the reader's thought processes would be interrupted.

If, however, you (not meaning you, morphonius_821 specifically) habitually type "then" instead of "than", "wear" instead of "where", or "allot" instead of "a lot" you will be causing the same effect to me as I did with my non-habitual "ether" to you or anyone else. To constantly have to break step when reading to check what is meant by the writer is annoying to the reader. It is also a discourtesy for it suggests that little or no thought has been put into the writing, and may, if done repeatedly, lead to the abandonment of the text by the reader, which defeats the object of the writing in the first place, for communication has failed.

This is why the use of "texting" at TalkGraphics and elsewhere is frowned upon. Taken to its logical conclusion, texting, a system of code used by the young in age and mentality, is deliberately designed to be unreadable to adults. In future it will become shorter and shorter and more and more unintelligible and this will transfer to the spoken word until language will become a system of grunts and we will have reverted to the stone age.
It is all part of a general decline that manifests itself in the speech of politicians and the gradual dumbing down of society that the B.B.C. and government, in particular and the media in general, seem hell-bent on pursuing.

It seems to be a convention on a forum such as this that brevity is best, for those who have written long posts often apologise for having done so. Well I will not apologise fot the length of this piece, I refuse to be a part of the dumbing down process, which caters to those with shorter attention spans.

You may well have already given up on reading this, because it has bored the pants off you. But at least I showed you the courtesy of writing in a clear and as far as possible, error-free manner.
Saludos,
Bob.

[haakoo]

Sorry,Bob

I think this statement is inappropriate ;
You seem to forget about all the members that are not English or not native English speaking,let alone writing.
So in a way you are discriminating these members as they don't know all the right grammar and/or spelling.

So lighten up and let's talk graphics or go have a teaching job