ahold

[Ed Keer]

I am an 'alot' speller and yes for me, it seems like
one word. I have to constantly remind myself that it's
two. I can't really give you any more insight than
that.

Ed

--- FRITZ JUENGLING
<juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> wrote:

> 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)
>



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