I’ll never forget my first day of fourth* grade. We all entered the classroom complete with fresh supplies of notebooks, folders, pencils and glue. We sat at our desks full of optimism and anticipation and then the teacher, whose name I can’t remember, stood up and wrote something on the blackboard.

“alot”

No doubt we all expected her to write the date, her name or maybe even the class rules. But instead, all that appeared on the board was that string of four letters.

“I will give any of you that can find this word in a dictionary, $10,” she said before sitting down again.

$10 was a lot of money for someone in the 4th grade and who could believe that a teacher was offering to pay it to us. All we had to do was find the word in a dictionary. Simple!

Of course, not a single one of us was paid the $10 and not through lack of trying. No, I am sure every student in the class grabbed each dictionary he or she could find, scouring* the pages for those four letters all in a row.

Why was it then that not a single student in the class received the prize money? The reason is because alot is not a word. No doubt you have probably seen it used loads of times in other people’s writing but I assure you, alot is not a word.

When people use the (non) word alot, what they really mean is “a lot.” A lot (two words) is an informal phrase meaning a large portion or large quantity of something. Not to be confused with “allot”, a verb that means to distribute, to assign a portion, or to divide. For example: The teacher allotted me 40 minutes to take the test.

Now that you are aware of the difference between alot and a lot, its incorrect usage is bound to catch your eye more often and maybe even irritate you a little bit. You won’t be alone. The alot/a lot battle is so strong that there is even a Facebook group dedicated to the cause and the cartoonist Hyperbole and a Half even created a whole post about it. It is pretty funny, so I encourage you to have a look.

I may not remember anything else from 4th grade but I will never forget that alot is not a word.

*Fourth grade is a year of education in the United States and many other nations. The fourth grade is the fourth school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 9 or 10 years old, depending on his or her birthday.

*scouring – To search through or over thoroughly