Why is everyone always misspelling 'at least' and 'a lot' ?

Question

For some reason the teachers at my elementary school said that was correct. Is there a reasoning behind this?

I know how to spell the words people, just wondered why people think that they are correct [not just one person, a majority]

And I've seen 'atleast' a lot [he,he]!

Answer 1

"Alot" is a very common error. I don't see "at least" misspelled so often.

Once when my students had been given an essay assignment, I told them not to use any variation of the phrase "a lot," and if they did I would deduct ten points from their essay grades each time it was used. As a class we brainstormed for alternative words and phrases. I left this long list on the chalkboard for them as a reference and also gave my students copies of the list to keep in their folders. Imagine my surprise when a couple of students used "alot" so many times that their essay grades went into the negative numbers!

I've seen "alright" used to often that now it's considered a variant spelling of "all right."

Answer 2

I know a lot of people that spell a lot...alot, I have always been taught it's 2 words. I have never seen at least misspelled. I would just assume everyone knew it was 2 words.

Answer 3

'At least' is always two words. 'A lot' is actually two words. A 'lot' is a group of items. People then commonly spoke of 'a lot' of people or 'a lot' of cigars. After time, some people started removing the space from the two words, creating the new word 'alot'. Most dictionaries still do not consider 'alot' to be a word. Technically, it is still two words.

Answer 4

We say "alot" so most people assume it's one word.

I have to admit I've never seen "at least" misspelled. How do people misspell it? As one word "atleast"? I've never seen anything like that.

Answer 5

"A lot" is two words, and it is misspelled very frequently as one word. Another one people misspell is "cannot." This is one word, but you frequently see it spelled as two. I haven't seen "at least" misspelled very often, though.

Answer 6

I haven't noticed people spelling "at least" more than usual, but I do get "allot" from many of my students. I chalk it up to the fact that very few of them read very much these days, so they don't really know what it is supposed to look like.

Answer 7

I always misspell Special for some reason.

Answer 8

I wish that was all people misspelled. " dat" for " that' and "2" for "too" and "wat" for "what" are fine examples of total stupidity. These people will be very lucky to find jobs as burger flippers.