"a real lot"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Could be. I've never heard it. Sounds odd to me too.

  JL

Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: "a real lot"
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The popular mystery writer Robert B. Parker, near the end of his new novel _Sea Change_, has this exchange: "They're with their mother" / "Who is not a real lot better than their father" (p. 290).

"Not a real lot better" sounds terribly unidiomatic to me! I would say "not a whole lot better." Parker, a deft stylist, lives in Boston; he is (or has been) on the faculty of Boston University. His books are set (mostly) in New England. Is "a real lot better" a New Englandism?

--Charlie

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