atleast?

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:36 PM -0500 2/5/01, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:
>  >I have encountered the spelling "atleast"--"alot," too!
>>                                      Intentionally ambiguous!
>>                                         PAT
>
>Both are intentionally ambiguous? How? Or do you mean that you are using
>"alot" to be intentionally ambiguous? I thought that "alot" was pretty much
>standard among younger speakers.
>
>How frequently do you see "atleast"? And where? Is that spelling invariant
>among writers that you encounter? I.e., not sometimes "at least" and sometimes
>"atleast"?

I took Pat to be alluding to an ambiguity between
'I have encountered the spelling "atleast"--[and encountered it] a lot, too!'
and
'I have encountered the spelling "atleast"--[and the spelling] "a lot", too!'

larry