ahold

[FRITZ JUENGLING]

I've seen 'awhile' a zillion times and 'alot' 8 zillion times.  My question is 'what's going on in the heads of people who write this?" I do not mean this this in a derogatory way-I am really curious to know what they are thinking--is 'awhile' one word for them; does it mean 'period or time'?  I guess 'alot' and 'ahold' would be in the same question.  It just seems odd to me, as each set is made up of two clearly separate words for me.

On a similar note of Sprachgefühl, the other day in several of my classes, we were discussing the use of tenses in English.  I used my age-old example of "Did you get the mail yet?"   I asked the classes whether this sentence bothers them.  Usually, I get about a third to half who are bothered by it.  One girl, in spite of all my explanations, just couldn't see how it could be a problem in any way and did not understand the conflict that this sentence creates in my head.  I pointed out that this is an example of different Sprachgefühle that we have.

Fritz J

>>> zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU 06/13/05 09:18AM >>>
On Jun 13, 2005, at 8:49 AM, FRITZ JUENGLING asks me:

> How 'bout  "for awhile"? Does that bother you?

as MWDEU points out, the spelling "awhile" for the object of a
preposition has been very widely deplored, but it is nevertheless
very frequent.

this is entirely a matter of spelling, and in matters of spelling my
own practice is pretty conservative; english spelling is full of
arbitrariness, so spelling is one place where i think a fairly high
degree of uniformity is desirable.  i myself would write "for a
while", especially since "while" here is modifiable, as in "for a
(very) long while", in which case the article "a" must be separated
from "while". (similar reasoning applies to "alot" and, as i pointed
out in my first posting, "ahold".)

but i recognize that widespread nonstandard spellings always have a
good motivation and are not evidences of ignorance, illiteracy, or
anything of the sort, so i don't froth at the mouth, despair that
civilization is coming to an end, or peg the writers who use them as
inferior beings.

i notice "for awhile", but i understand that that's mostly just me.
i don't alter it in my students' writing.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)