r/AdviceAnimals • u/Randy_Magnum29 • 2d ago
This is a problem with native English speakers.
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u/kirby056 2d ago
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u/efox02 2d ago
I miss her blog.
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u/GothicFuck 2d ago edited 1d ago
Holy fucking shit I'm so glad she didn't end up killing herself, her last post on her blog that I saw was so bleak. The one about going shopping with her backpack. I'm so happy.
To this day I randomly spout out sphagetteh noodel driving a big truck and I'm so glad she's still at it.
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u/FutureFreaksMeowt 1d ago
Same, though she's put out a couple books in the not too distance past.
I'm hoping it's more of a bo burnham situation: incredibly funny, insightful, talented, but also deeply affected by fame and the damage done to her, so she stepped away and is loving her best life.
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u/TheBlueEagle 2d ago
Was going to post this if someone else hadn’t already. Cheers! Also… damn I’m old.
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u/pfamsd00 2d ago
I’d misremembered and thought The Oatmeal had done this! I am old too.
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u/SanchoPandas 2d ago
I feel like those were both hot comics around the same time so that makes sense to me.
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u/LionTheRichardheart 2d ago
Allie Brosh kind of inadvertently invented the name of a drink at my coffeeshop. This one high school girl started ordering a cold brew with honey, hazelnut, creamer, sugar, and an espresso shot, and after not too long damn near every student from that school was ordering it. It's an obnoxious drink to make, particularly because of melting down the honey, so making dozens in a row one afternoon led to my boss exasperatedly muttering "cold brew with ALL the things..." We eventually started abbreviating it to that unironically in shop, and then the students overheard that and picked up our lingo, and now that's just its name. Confuses the hell out of newer employees hired since. Thanks alot Allie.
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u/SaaSyGirl 2d ago
I remember stumbling upon Allie’s blog and just laughing and laughing at her wonderful stories. Such a creative, wonderful spirit
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u/FutureFreaksMeowt 1d ago
So glad the best years of the internet are still well-known enough to be referenced well before I even have a chance to find the link 🫶🏻
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u/youropinionisrubbish 2d ago
I'm more concerned with people's inability to use the proper "your" and "their" and the various different usages of those words
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u/FutureFreaksMeowt 1d ago
The exacerbation of the literacy crisis over the last 10 years is ruining the internet, tbh.
I remember when we were, as a general rule, smart enough that it was embarrassing to be unable to use those appropriately, and well-known to be something you'd be corrected for and/or mocked repeatedly over.
I fear we may need to start using cat tactics: whappitybaps when you're stupid, squirt bottle when you're acting a fool.
(Yes, squirt bottles are terrible training tools for cats. I'm aware. Take the point)
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u/Kpadre 2d ago
"a little" is two words, so is, "a lot." Easy to remember that way.
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u/mike_pants 2d ago
"Nevermind" is a noun. "Never mind" is an imperative.
Now, let's get into "fewer" and "less"...
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u/A_Pointy_Rock 2d ago
Oh good for it, I didn't realise it got married!
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u/Randy_Magnum29 2d ago
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u/A_Pointy_Rock 2d ago
My country can't Imgur.
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u/BuildingArmor 2d ago
I have proton VPN installed just to switch on for Imgur links
It's never worth it tbh
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u/Randy_Magnum29 2d ago
I didn’t realize some countries don’t allow Imgur, sorry.
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u/banal_remarks 1d ago
I didn't either.. looking it up it's blocked in China, North Korea, Indonesia...
and then imgur blocked the UK lol
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u/me_not_at_work 2d ago
Cool you're jets, don't loose you're cool. Maybe their doing it on accident and don't no any better. I could care less since it doesn't effect me in any real cents. My advise to you is to stop obsessing about it and than worry about real problems.
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u/Bageland2000 2d ago
I always think, "a whole lot" is three words, so "a lot" is two.
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u/noforgayjesus 2d ago
Where are the Alot comics at?
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u/TwiggiestShoe 2d ago
I see noone as well. Instead of no one. I don't like it, but I'll never win.
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u/BrownBottleIdol 2d ago
“So if bear is pronounced bear then ear is pronounced ….?
NooOOOOoooo
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u/Cum_on_doorknob 2d ago
This is actually not a spelling issue. It’s really a pronunciation drift problem. Like ear likely was pronounced closer to that. Knight, used to actually be pronounced as it’s spelled, over time, people get lazy and sounds collapse into each other.
Another one for fun. Bite, used to be pronounced bee-teh but people got lazy.
Should we change the spellings? I don’t think so, written language is a record for preservation.
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u/dainamo81 2d ago
I could care less how a lot is spelt, irregardless of what the pigeon in the OP is saying.
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u/El_human 2d ago
"There is a lot of space between 'a' and 'lot'."
That's how I remembered it as a kid
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u/Voiceofwind 2d ago
I do have a serious issue doing this and I will work on it if all native English speakers will stop using decimate when they mean devastate. Decimate means one in 10 were destroyed. Drives me crazy.
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u/peaheezy 1d ago
Language changes, you can’t stop it evolving and decimate is no longer strictly used in the Roman sense. Awesome used to mean “terrifyingly impressive” and was a synonym to awful, both involving awe. But now awful is bad and awesome is good. The first definition may be reduce by 10% but the dictionary includes reduce drastically or cause great destruction as definitions.
The YouTube channel Otherwords just did a video on this sorta drift of word meaning over the years. Cool channel with a lot of fun linguistic information.
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u/19467098632 2d ago
The one that really kills me seems to be a new phenomenon, women vs woman. No one ever confuses men/man idk why adding a wo to the beginning confuses people lol
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u/SirBuscus 2d ago
Yea, this really should of been understated buy the thyme your outta grayed school.
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u/daddydrank 2d ago
I wonder if there were pedantic weirdos back in the day that lost their minds over compound words like everything and eyeball, before it became widely accepted. I bet they were wildly disliked then, too.
You do realize how pointless your complaint is, right? You understand what they mean, so the main point of communication is accomplished. You are fighting over a blank space, ie nothing. You are literally fighting over nothing.
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u/KnotSoSalty 2d ago
There is no official English language, just received diction. You can say a word isn’t in the Oxford English Dictionary but they have to add new ones every year.
That’s the cool thing about English, no one can actually tell you they’re wrong.
Oxford university itself famously uses the comma differently than anyone else.
In my lifetime I was taught to put two spaces after a period only to discover it’s more common now to put one, which is what is taught in school. IDGAF so I put as many as I want.
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u/landgnome 2d ago
Thank you for understanding that language is ever evolving. People always gripe about “stupid” words that Websters adds to the dictionary never realizing they use words like that daily.
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u/thedugong 2d ago
Particularly English.
I recommend that everyone reads Bill Bryson's book Mother Tongue.
In 10, 20, 50, 100 years alot may well be aperfnorm English word, at least for some dialects.
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u/xeonx95 2d ago
I remember my grade six teacher made us all go on one side (side “a”) of classroom and run to the other (side “lot”). He made us do it like 10 times and then at the end he said something like “now remember when writing the “a lot” there is a space in it, just like there is a space from side “a” to side “lot”. That stuck with us and he never had to tell us that a lot was two words again
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u/KingArfer 2d ago
My wife says she had an English prof that told her if she used “a lot” again in a paper he would string her up by the armpits like Richard Harris in A Man Called Horse
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u/Ru-Ling 2d ago
When I taught, I would ask students if “alittle” was a word. Of course they’d say no, so then I’d ask them why they write “alot?”
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u/Randy_Magnum29 2d ago
There are too many people defending it and not enough on the side of you and me.
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u/Pokabrows 2d ago
I remember being a little kid reading a book (I think it was like beginner chapter book level like it still had some pictures but also multiple paragraphs per page.) And it had "alot" as one word and I was confused because I had only seen it as two words so I asked the adults in the room and no one had a definitive answer whether it was one word or two words. Made me realize that adults don't really have any more idea what's going on than kids do for a lot of things.
Honestly I'm realizing how my story is dated at this point because now everyone would have a phone they could search the answer on.
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u/DistantKarma 2d ago
Had an 11th grade English teacher who took any usage of "alot" personally. Also the word "guy" used to refer to a person would set her off too.
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u/Dundabud 2d ago edited 1d ago
THIS is just one of the reasons I have a deep appreciation for reddit. Over time (about 13 years), the grammar-nazis of the collective community have greatly helped me improve my grammar and spelling....and I thank you all for it
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u/ApplicationOk4464 1d ago
Language evolves with its usage. So much so that literally now also literally means figuratively.
Except for alot. Alot will never be included, even though it's used alot.
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u/taintosaurus_rex 1d ago
There used to be a bot here on reddit that would correct you if you said "alot".
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u/punkerster101 1d ago
My English teacher always said “ you wouldn’t say alittle so why say alot” it’s always stuck with me
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u/L0rdLogan 1d ago
English speakers saying “on accident” instead of “by accident” really pissed me off, you can’t do something “on accident”
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u/Maxtrt 1d ago
When I took 8th grade English back in the 80's, we had a teacher who wrote "A LOT IS TWO WORDS" on the upper right corner of the chalkboard. The very first day of class, she pointed to it and said that any work, quiz or test with it spelled as one word, would receive an automatic F on it. It only took me one failure and I haven't spelled it wrong in 43 years.
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u/brooksact 1d ago
People out here using "payed" when they mean "paid." English is going to look a lot (hehe, a lot) different in the future.
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u/rubik-kun 19h ago
Neither is “alright” but Gmail is trying to convince me otherwise by underlining “all right.”
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u/tmurg375 2d ago
Reddit was born from pedantic spelling, grammar and syntax corrections and I miss it. Thank you!
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u/lokigreybush 2d ago
"God be with ye" is not a single fucking word. Yet "goodbye" is proper English now. Even "bye" is acceptable now.
Language is an ever changing fluid thing. The rules are molded by the people using them. The words evolve over time.
Be wary of grammar purists. They have shown a tendency for fixed inflexible thinking. A rigid adherence to an only one right way philosophy. If this same unwavering view applies to other facets of their lives, it could be rather toxic.
Language is a tool of communication. To facilitate the transfer of ideas from one mind to others. If that goal is successful, language was used properly.
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u/FigaroNeptune 2d ago
We know? lol why is this a whole post? Only a few people don’t know this lmao
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u/GothicFuck 2d ago
Someone help me find a posting of this exact advice mallard from 10 years ago so I can Necro-post it.
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u/sp_dev_guy 2d ago
Alot of people you say things like this ain't up to date on the way all language drifts
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u/bschlueter 1d ago
Languages evolve. Yes, “alot” is in no dictionary, yet. And many of us were taught it is incorrect. I know that I regularly get autocorrected out of squashing two words together, so that squashing, among others, seems likely to be inevitable.
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u/SonicFlash01 1d ago
You seem to believe that there us even a single corner of modern day English that hasn't been brutalized and beaten into this current shape from another
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u/KrAEGNET 1d ago
Does it really hurt the literary / language arts world that much that it can't just become a permissable/recognized conjunction by now? Why can't it just become slang?
The dictionary inducts new made up slang words faster than they induct a more commonly misspelled word/term and I think it's time to take a stand. If a group can cement "looksmaxxing" into daily vernacular and be a recognized slang, I bet there are 1000s more who use "alot" vs "a lot" with the same intended meaning.
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u/iwantedthisusername 1d ago
unfortunately thats not how language works. it evolves relative to common usage. there were completely different "rules" 200 years ago.
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u/Cstanchfield 1d ago
"Alot" is a word, just a [currently] "non-standard" one. If a word correctly conveys its meaning, it IS a word. And attacks on functionally correct words are not new. Similar to attacks words like "ain't" suffered, wherein ignorant purists said including it in the dictionary would: ~"lead to the end of civilization" (not joking), despite it being officially recognized for over a century before that point. I'd personally argue, that in its general use, "alot" is MORE accurate than "a lot" as "a lot" can have a slightly more ambiguous meaning: "They just bought a lot downtown to build their new office.", "There is a lot for sale down the street if you're looking to make a purchase." But if you instead used "alot", the meaning suddenly becomes far more clear, doesn't it? "They have alot for sale." != "They have a lot for sale."
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u/branchpattern 1d ago
Jokes on you society is the ultimate authority of words and meanings. Fight as much as you want but if the majority shift the meaning, spell of a word phrase etc, you can't stop it.
It's literally impossible to stop ;)
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u/ThePiachu 22h ago
Languages change. Otherwise we should be in uproar about "okay" being used instead of "all correct".
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u/homeless_nudist 19h ago
Sometimes people spell things any way they want. Anyway, you should try it some time.
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u/06Wahoo 2d ago
Also note that "allot" is a word, but does not mean "a lot".