I have come across the following construction, but l am not sure whether it is correct or not.
Not a lot of his friends speak English well.
My question is: can we use "a lot of" in a negative sentence as mentioned above?
grammargrammaticality-in-contextquantifiers
I have come across the following construction, but l am not sure whether it is correct or not.
Not a lot of his friends speak English well.
My question is: can we use "a lot of" in a negative sentence as mentioned above?
Best Answer
Yes, you can use this construction. From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
I think it's fine for informal usage, but I personally would avoid using it in formal, written English. The word lot, defined as a large number or amount, often carries the "informal" label in dictionaries. Not a lot of seems even more informal to me.