Learn English – is it correct to use ‘often a times’

phrase-meaningphrase-usagephrases

Does the phrase "often a times" exist? If so, what is the correct way to use it?

Would the following sentence be correct?

I have seen him loafing about in the streets often a times.

Best Answer

The Ngram viewer is ignorant of "often a times," but it finds "often at times," currently out-written 100 to 1 by "oftentimes." From Young Children at School in in the Inner City by Barbara Tizard:

It seems likely, too, that disruptive behaviour occurred more often at times not observed,....

But the google finds the phrase about 175K times in websites saying things like

Sports betting often a times has been referred to as gambling where a bet is made in prediction of the outcome of a particular game.

The phrase "often at times" gets only 350K hits. (By way of contrast, "oftentimes" gets 11.7M.) I'm tempted to say that "often a times" is merely a phonetic transcription of "often at times," when the final "t" in "at" gets consumed by the initial "t" in "times."