"a real lot"

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:19 PM -0400 10/11/06, sagehen wrote:
>  >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
>
I also have the sense of an influence from "not really a (whole) lot better"
LH

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