Is 'alot" a word?

"A" and "lot" have long been established to be separate words.

 

"Alot" may well be an official word one day (thanks to someone's original mistake, or laziness, and others following suit like so many lemmings), butit'snotyet.

 

 

 

Mass media and the universally-acessible internet really affect how people speak and write (I often see "u" written for "you" in student writing, for example). We are all, like, starting to , like, speak like California surfers, Shaggy from Scooby Doo, or "valley girls."

 

Every waiter/waitress around here seems to think that the plural of "you" is "yous." (As in "Do yous want smoking or non-smoking?"

 

I seem to see poor spelling and grammar more and more often these days, and ever more in places where one would expect more care to be taken (expensive advertising, newspapers, etc.) It certainly creates a negative impression of the source. Here's a recent front-page headline from my local paper: "Strickers still on picket line"  Now how many clueless, inattentive hands did that headline go through, I wonder, before 50,000 copies of it were printed? Ever hear of spell check, folks? "Strickers" (strikers) is not even a word!

 

Needless to say, I don't have a very high opinion of the local paper.

 

 

We used the word gay as lame back in the early 80's.

But as macho kids, being gay/homo meant lame

 

Alot reminds of some words like "beit" or "albeit" which are really be it or all be it, and I've never seen anyone condemn this

 

Okay.

 

 Awight

 

YES! Because where you at....is a corruption of where ARE you at. So, just like you said, just say where are you.

 

Why do we say the "at". Dosn't the "where you" imply that?

But going around saying "where you?" would sound pretty weird.

What is the point of all this? I have no clue, kind of like this poll.