"a real lot"

[sagehen]

>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
 ~~~~~~~~
I don't know about "New Englandism,"  but I think I hear this substitution
of "real" for "whole"  every now & then, not only here (in far northern
NY), but elsewhere.  I think the sense of comprehensiveness that both
adjectives have make them *feel*  sort of interchangeable.
AM

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