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Sun 17 Jul, 2005 11:35 am
... A lot, as in "my dog has a lot of fleas" is two words. Never one. "Alot" is not a word and never will be. "Allot" as in "We will allot each family a plot of land" is one word.
Every time you type a punctuation mark, like a period or a comma, put a space after it. Just one. Period. Space. Every time.
"Their" as in, "Their dog has a lot of fleas" has the E first, before the I.
Plurals do not have an apostrophe in them. I can't think of a one. Some people use an apostrophe when they pluralize acronyms, as in "WMD's" but "WMDs" is just as clear. Same with twos and threes, or 2s and 3s. There is no need for an apostrophe in a plural.
When you use "its" to mean "belonging to it" as in, "the dog brought its fleas in here," there is no apostrophe. If you were talking about a man instead of an "it" you'd use "his" and there's no apostrophe in that. Remember that. If you could substitute "his" for "its," then don't use an apostrophe.
Save all those apostrophes up and use them when you want "it's" to mean "it is," as in "It's a beautiful day, and although you may think I have complained a lot, I feel much better now. Thank you for listening. Thank you a lot."
And you're question is?
(Only kidding.)
I was taught, and see no reason to question, that common style calls for two spaces after a period which terminates a sentence (as opposed to a period which is appended to an abbreviation).
So there . . .
Re: Peeves...
Wy wrote:... A lot, as in "my dog has a lot of fleas" is two words. Never one. "Alot" is not a word and never will be. "Allot" as in "We will allot each family a plot of land" is one word.
I think that "never will be" might be a stretch, Wy. It is already used in many figurative ways in language and it certainly is part of English slang.
Quote:
Macquarie Dictionary of Slang
alot
(a common spelling error, but also used deliberately as a `cool' spelling) adverb 1. a great deal: The traffic has eased up and we're cruising alot faster now. --adjective 2. many; a great number or amount of: It was alot of fun.
When something becomes useful to language it tends to stick around, prescriptions notwithstanding.
Googled;
Results 1 - 10 of about 5,270,000 English pages for "alot"
Set, mostly I love you but here we differ. Printers, who use proportional type, have to my knowledge never put two spaces. When typewriters were invented, all the letters were given the same width, with the character centered in a block of white space. In this kind of monospace type, you need the extra space after the sentence-ending period -- without it the "gap" isn't different enough to indicate to the eye that the sentence is over.
Proportional type, which is what most people use nowadays, gives a period a little extra space on the right. It's built that way. So you don't need the extra space unless you're using Courier Monospace or another monospace font...
In other words, it's not common style but a typewriter convention, which is not appropriate when you're using a word processor.
And as far as alot goes, it can be slang all it wants. I hate it and will never deliberately use it.
Alot? Never.
This grunted term is transcribeds as "alotta".
My grandfather was printer. The period in his fonts had no "extra" space. He put two "n" space blanks after a period. Unfortunately, he did not live long enough for me to truly learn typesetting, as did my mother and her twin sister. But i've watched him set type many a time, while listening to his commentary. Either two "n" spaces, or one "m" space (dependant upon how the right hand end of the line will come out) after a period which ends a sentence.
"En" and "em" are such useful Scrabble words.
Two spaces:
I like sushi. Do you like sushi? Everybody likes sushi. Not Marnie. She doesn't like sushi.
One space:
I like sushi. Do you like sushi? Everybody likes sushi. Not Marnie. She doesn't like sushi.
EDITED: It doesn't seem to make any difference. The software doesn't like, nor recognize, two spaces.
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Wy,
Regarding 'alot', of course it's your choice as to how you use language. But personal preferences do not drive language in an overall sense.
Over a million hits! It's clear that it is already part of language. It isn't part of academic or even newspaper language but these two are only parts of language and actually they are small parts compared to speech.
Re: Peeves...
Wy wrote:
Every time you type a punctuation mark, like a period or a comma, put a space after it. Just one. Period. Space. Every time.
Dear sir,
You are correct. There are not two spaces after a full stop in modern books or magazines. To prepare copy it is necessary to remove the double spaces. It is a nuisance.
Kind regards,
Goldmund
Re: Peeves...
Goldmund wrote:There are not two spaces after a full stop in modern books or magazines. To prepare copy it is necessary to remove the double spaces. It is a nuisance.
You mean the Gutenberg press doesn't have a 'replace all' function?
A pet peeve that just came to mind is the use of of in place of have - e.g. "I could of been a contender!" My M-W dictionary shows its use as nonstandard, but it is popular enough to have been included.
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