Conference thebay::joyoflex

Perhaps it has something to do with the way the word is used.  "Alot" is used
in "alot of money," but also in "I like fishing alot" and "he does that alot." 
I remember thinking as a child that "I like fishing a lot" looked funny.

I agree that the "a - l" combination is popular in English; many of the
combination words I can think of begin with "all" smashed into something else. 
What examples are there that don't fit this mold?

						Brian

>Perhaps it has something to do with the way the word is used.  "Alot" is used
>in "alot of money," but also in "I like fishing alot" and "he does that alot." 
>I remember thinking as a child that "I like fishing a lot" looked funny.

I wonder too if the mashing together of alot is due to confusion with the
word allot (as in the settlers were alloted a tract of land).

The meaning of a lot does seem rather contorted.  I have always taken a
lot to mean a portion, usually, but not necessarily a large portion. 

As for using it in the form "How much do you like xxx ?", "I like xxx a lot"
seems very strange and so avoid it in prefernce to much or very much.  I
haven't checked the grammatical correctness of lot in this context but
have my doubts as to its validity.

After all would you say "I like fishing a portion" or "a large portion" ?

Stuart

    G'day,
    
    
    Quite a lot of people use a lot to indicate a degree of muchness.
    Similarly, 'not a lot', indicates a small measure of muchness, or even a
    neagite measure of muchness ie How did you like going to the dentist?
    Not a lot.
    
    Use of a lot in these contexes is common in the UQ. It may have derived
    from schoolboys at school dinners when asked how much potato, replied 
    "A lot" meaning as much as possible.
    
    
    derek
    
    

	Just off the top of my head ...  My guess is that people do
	not process "a lot" as two words.  For most speakers, it 
	probably just functions as an intensifier -- i.e., "often"
	or "very much."  And that's the way it's listed in the
	dictionary.  I also think this is probably an abbreviated
	form of a longer phrase -- an article and a noun typically do
	not function as an adverb.  Any guesses as to what that phrase
	is?  Also, this doesn't explain "lots" in the same context -- 
	"I'm feeling lots better."

		-- Cliff

    It seems to me that a migration from "a lot," meaning "a portion,"
    to "I like it a lot," in the sense of "very much" ("a great deal",
    "a great portion") is a reasonable extension of meaning.  
    
    English words change parts of speech constantly.  Nouns become
    verbs, and adjectives regularly become nouns.  You see it most
    often with trademarks -- instead of "a VAX computer" or "a zipper
    slide fastener" or "a jar of Tabasco liquid hot-pepper sauce"
    people say "Boot the VAX" or "Your zipper is open" or "Pass the
    tabasco, please."
    
    --bonnie

    Compare "alot" with the history of "pas" in French--the
    older negative was "ne", often intensified with "pas"
    ("not a step") or "point" ("not a bit").  By now, much
    of the negativity has been attached to the "pas", as in
    "pas de tout", and you can't use "ne" alone (any native
    French speakers want to comment?  Do you think "Je ne
    sais" is a grammatical sentence, or does it need the 
    "pas"?).
    
			-John Bishop

  No comment on "a lot" turning into "alot" because I believe I am on record
  in this file as being in favor of "alright."  This may be foolish
  consistency, but then I have a small mind.

  I always figured that the "a great deal" meaning of both lot and 
  lots came from meaning number 4 in my Webster's New Collegiate, to
  wit: a parcel of land.  The meaning is in some sense parallel to
  "load" and "loads," as in "Get a load of that."  

  So "We have loads of that item in stock" and "We have lots of that item
  in stock" are equivalent.

  Sounds plausible to me but it is well known that plausibility butters no
  parsnips in JOYOFLEX.

  JP

	re .7

	Well, in the French version of "La Boh�me", the heroin sings:

		On m'appelle Mimi, et pourquoi ? Je ne sais !

	Sounds a bit old-fashioned; I wouldn't say that (nobody calls 
	me Mimi, anyway). 
	
	Also a number of old clich�s don't take the second word, like 
	"Je ne saurais mieux dire", or the mysterious "je ne sais quoi" 
	(which dates back to Racine in 17th century).

	Today the negation usually needs two words (ne...pas, ne...plus 
	etc...) and you'll almost always hear "Je ne sais pas" (unless 
	they know :)

	"Je ne sais pas" is generally pronounced "Chais pas". This is
	due to the decline of French, but let's not get into that one :)

	roger	

    Re: .6
    
    I feel obliged to put in the obligatory reminder that "VAX" is a
    registered trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation and MUST always
    be used as an adjective and never as a noun.

    Re: .10 [Re: .6]
    
    	"I feel obliged to put in the obligatory reminder that 'VAX' is a
    	registered trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation and MUST always
    	be used as an adjective and never as a noun."
    
    At the risk of launching a tangent on a matter of corporate policy, I
    feel obliged to point out that there are good reasons to disagree with
    the "requirement" that trademarks be used as adjectives.  The reason I
    bring it up in this notefile at all is to encourage people to think
    clearly about how they use language.
    
    Trademarks (also known as trade names) are not adjectives; they are
    nouns, proper nouns, that is, names.  Consider the most well-known,
    successful trade names; they are invariably used as nouns: "This is not
    your father's Oldsmobile," "This Bud's for you," "Things go better with
    Coke."  (The Coca-Cola corporation, which is probably the most
    successful enterprise of all time in protecting its "intellectual
    property," does not hesitate to use its trade names as nouns.)
    
    Where did this urban myth arise that trade names are adjectives?  From
    the policy statements I have seen from the corporate Legal Department,
    I surmise that there is a concern about trade names becoming generic. 
    As most of us are probably aware by now, certain trade names have
    become too successful for their own good, with the result that they
    have lost their proprietary value: cellophane and (in the U.S., but not
    in Canada) aspirin are now improper nouns; Kleenex and Xerox are in
    danger of a similar fate.  Note that they began as nouns and remain
    nouns.  The critical transition is from *proper* noun to *improper*
    noun, a grammatical distinction doubtless too subtle for the Legal
    Department.
    
    How should we prevent a trade name from becoming generic?  I am tempted
    to say that we should only be so lucky that any of our trademarks
    become so successful that the public would use them to refer to our
    competitors' products.  But given that there is a possible problem,
    however theoretical and unlikely, I respectfully disagree with the
    official corporate "solution."  I especially disagree with the
    description of the solution as deeming trade names to be adjectives,
    which they are not.  The corporate rule actually requires us to
    append a generic, improper noun after a proprietary, proper noun.
    This works because English allows nouns to be used as adjectives, thus
    leading to the mistaken impression that a noun so used is an adjective.
    This clumsy usage is neither necessary nor sufficient to keep trade
    names from becoming generic.  As mentioned above, successful trademarks
    are almost always used as nouns.  On the other hand, an example of a
    trademark in danger of becoming generic despite its use preceding a
    second noun is "Scotch tape."
    
    What actually protects a trademark is vigilance in insisting that the
    trademark be used as a proper noun, not adherence to mistakenly
    conceived, awkward grammatical constructions.  "Coke" remains
    proprietary because of squads of testers who order "Coke" in
    restaurants and complain when served anything other than "The Real
    Thing," not by the promulgation of superfluous phraseology such as
    "Things go better with Coke brand cola soft drink."
    
Lew Lasher

    Re 'alot'
    
    Either, the evolution of 'a lot' to 'alot' is confined to the land
    to the west of the Atlantic.

    Or, it has in some way avoided Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire in
    the UK.
    
    Or, I haven't been paying attention!

    re .11;
    
    Thank you for expressing clearly and concisely something that has been
    bothering me alot lately.
    
    -dave

    What about the nature of the sounds as a reason for `a lot' contracting
    but not the other examples cited in .0? Word boundaries come and go;
    a similar thing, but in reverse, happened to `a norange' and `a napron'.
    
    I suspect that word boundaries are more flexible when there's a liquid
    (commonly L and R) or a nasal about (N or M, or - in some languages - NG, 
    or various other arcane sounds that I'd need the IPA to render).
    
    I can think of counter-examples: `a number' (no movement there) for
    example. And this isn't an idea I've heard or read elsewhere
    (as far as I can remember). So this isn't gospel - it's just a thought.
    
    b

Re .11

I too disagree with the lawyers who say that trademarks are adjectives. 
A word is that part of speech needed for the way it is used.  Most
trademarks are used as nouns, most of the time.

Nevertheless, our corporate lawyers have decreed that our trademarks
should only be used as adjectives.  See the Corporate Identity Manual
for more.

Dave C.

    Re .11
    
    I agree too.
    
    I suspect that what our corporate lawyers mean when they say `A TM is
    an adjective' is:
    
    	o	a trademark derived from a company's name, when used to 
    		give a specific description of something produced by that 
    		company, is (necessarily) an adjective
    		[this strikes me as being an entirely superfluous statement
    		 of the obvious]
    
    	o	it is easier to protect intellectual property rights
    		in this sort of TM when people use it as an adjective
    
    b

    .11 and .16 are making the mistake of assuming that there is some
    connection between reality and legality.
    
    --bonnie

  re .7
>	Well, in the French version of "La Boh�me", the heroin sings:


	It was pointed out to me (thanks, Delia) that heroin
	in this case must be spelt heroine.
	[It is illegal to possess the heroine if she's not
	carrying her final e.]

	roger

    Re .18 (Roger):
    
        >[It is illegal to possess the heroine if she's not
	>carrying her final e.]
         
    It's doubtless illegal to possess the heroine even if she is carrying
    the final e.  At least in the United States, slavery's been made
    illegal.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

     Bonnie, did you just say lawyers were not people?!

             Mike

>        >[It is illegal to possess the heroine if she's not
>	>carrying her final e.]
         
>    It's doubtless illegal to possess the heroine even if she is carrying
>    the final e.  At least in the United States, slavery's been made
>    illegal.

Oh and Roger, don't make it worse by saying you meant "use" instead of
"possess".... :-):-)

Arie

>     Bonnie, did you just say lawyers were not people?!
>
>             Mike

	Hmmm ...  Seems like a reasonable assertion to me.

		-- Cliff	

    Sounds like the lawyers of the Digital(TM) brand corporation are
    trying to enforce a language change.
    
    Well, lawyers' languages are almost unrelated to human languages.
    The difference between lawyers' languages and other professions'
    languages?  If you don't want to enter a particular profession,
    you don't have to learn its jargon.  If you don't want to enter
    law, you can still go to jail for not learning its jargon.
    Why haven't they succeeded in halting all progress, I wonder.
    
    By the way, I have seen "another words" for "in other words",
    "a line with" for "aligned with", and some others that were
    even more obscure.  No one seems to claim that these should
    be accepted as English.