I constantly have trouble with spelling the word-phrases ‘at least’ and ‘a lot’ .. they both should be a single word in my mind, which isn’t correct.
They both seem to just be a single unit of meaning.
It’s an English idiom thing that I just continually stumble over. Anyone able to correct that in my head once and for all – much appreciated!
From the comments, I understand that I may have oversimplified in saying that 'a lot' and 'at least' were pairs of words. That being the case, I'd update my question as to why there is a space in that word, and if they are part of a larger set of words/lexemes that are similarly constructed.
Also, this is my first question, so if anyone has feedback on the tags I used, that would also be welcome. I wondered about applying the tag ‘grammatical-number’ for instance, but that didn’t seem as correct as the five I chose.. not sure though.
I understand I checked off an answer too quickly – I wish there were a way to accept multiple answers! Next time I'll wait longer though.
Best Answer
You're certainly not the first to feel an urge to merge "a lot" into "alot." Maybe the most revealing question would be, why does it feel like "it should be a single word"?
It's easy enough to explain why these examples are two words. Take "at least": they're just two words, just doing their things. We might have said "at the least," or any other wordier construction using "at": "at the very latest," "at a hazard," and not feel compelled to merge these phrases into a single word. Similarly, "a lot" is, well, a lot, a noun in its own right, which came from the idea of a portion or share (and "a lot" has come to imply a large portion). We might use "a" with any other noun: "a multitude," "a plethora," etc., and not go around creating such mutant monsters as "abunch."
So far so good, but wait; many pairs of small words have successfully gotten hitched. "Some thing," "any thing," and maybe the most parallel example, "a while"—why do these get to be something, anything, and awhile, but the poor old alot gets mocked and persecuted? I don't have any better answer to that than... languages move in mysterious ways. Accepted usage is what we use and what we accept. Maybe the alot (and maybe even the atleast and atmost?) will have their day... someday.