Re: More natural language questions

From: "David Peterson" <DigitalScream@...>
> In a message dated 7/16/01 6:55:30 PM, fortytwo@GDN.NET writes:
>
> << That's probably a good way to view it, since it's often reduced to "a
> lotta" or "alotta", I've also seen it written.  It seems to be perceived
> as a single word by most English-speakers. >>
>
>     I wouldn't go that far.  "A lot" may be thought of as
> one word, but not "a lot of".  At least, in my experience with
> third/fourth graders.  They all spell "a lot" "alot" (and I
> don't see why it shouldn't be that way), but rarely
> "alotta"--they know that's wrong.  They do sometimes write
> "a lot a" or "alot a", indicating that they're not sure what
> word follows "a lot", but that it is a word on its own.
Well... I can understand "alot" for 'often' ("It happens alot") and "lotta"
for 'amount of' ("a whole lotta X goin' on") but I'd imagine "alotta" to be
rarer...

Altavista counts:
"lots of"   4,779,633
alot        1,018,220
lotta         475,555
"alot of"     470,362
"lotsa"        64,071
"a lotta"      21,421 ?
alotta          5,164
"alotta fagina"   508
"lotsa of"        257
"lotta of"        163
"alotta of"        24


OK, enough of that.

    *Muke!