0321 TPS Spot the Error Contest－Answer and Explanation 你是挑錯的高手嗎? 正確解答
Answer: “alot” should be “many.”
“The African-American literary peers of the 1930s writer Zora Neale Hurston criticized many of her stories for not being polemical enough.”
Error: The writer has fallen victim to popular usage in combining “a” and “lot” to form the nonword, “alot.” While just substituting "a lot" for the nonword is a good choice, a better choice is to substitute “many.” Why? Because "many" is one word, not two. Furthermore, the opposite of "a lot" is "a little." The phrases are so overused in familiar conversation that neither one adds anything fresh to a conversation, let alone to an academic paper.
作者犯了一個常見的錯誤，那就是將a和lot放在一起，成了一個未經正式確認的口語字詞alot。儘管我們可以將這個錯字更正成a lot，但更好的選擇是用many，原因是因為many是一個字，比兩個字a lot來的簡潔。除此之外，a lot的反義字是a little，這兩個詞太常出現在日常生活裡，實難增添對話的新意，若使用於學術論文中則無法讓文章表現出色。
Nonetheless, "a lot" is not ungrammatical. For the last 20 years, “alot” has been appearing with increasing frequency in colloquial dictionaries, yet serious arbiters of language reject it. A similarly illicit word—“alright”—is further along in its adoption into the canon of accepted words, but most language authorities still insist upon “all right.” Until such time as “alot” is deemed to be correct, academic writers should not employ it. Its appearance will not impress an editor. This writing mistake is No. 3 of 10 Common Writing Errors That Can Spell “Rejection” for Your Manuscript, which are posted elsewhere on The Published Scholar site.
然而，正確來說，用a lot是合乎文法規則的。反觀過去二十年來，越來越多口語字典收錄了alot一字，事實上，真正講究語言的人並不採用此用法。另一個有爭議的字是alright，這個字的接受度雖然較高，但多數語言專家仍堅持使用all right。在alot被承認為正確用法之前，學術論文寫作時應該避免使用此字，因為這樣無法讓審閱的人留下好的正面印象。這樣的寫作錯誤可參照本專頁所張貼之「10 個導致退稿的常見寫作錯誤之三：“ ‘A lot’ Is Not a Word”」。
Thanks for everyone's participation in this week's Spot the Error Contest, it's been fun!
謝謝所有粉絲們參與本周的「你是挑錯的高手嗎?」活動，將實用、有意義的知識和大家交流與分享。
TPS Editorial Team
“The African-American literary peers of the 1930s writer Zora Neale Hurston criticized many of her stories for not being polemical enough.”
Error: The writer has fallen victim to popular usage in combining “a” and “lot” to form the nonword, “alot.” While just substituting "a lot" for the nonword is a good choice, a better choice is to substitute “many.” Why? Because "many" is one word, not two. Furthermore, the opposite of "a lot" is "a little." The phrases are so overused in familiar conversation that neither one adds anything fresh to a conversation, let alone to an academic paper.
作者犯了一個常見的錯誤，那就是將a和lot放在一起，成了一個未經正式確認的口語字詞alot。儘管我們可以將這個錯字更正成a lot，但更好的選擇是用many，原因是因為many是一個字，比兩個字a lot來的簡潔。除此之外，a lot的反義字是a little，這兩個詞太常出現在日常生活裡，實難增添對話的新意，若使用於學術論文中則無法讓文章表現出色。
Nonetheless, "a lot" is not ungrammatical. For the last 20 years, “alot” has been appearing with increasing frequency in colloquial dictionaries, yet serious arbiters of language reject it. A similarly illicit word—“alright”—is further along in its adoption into the canon of accepted words, but most language authorities still insist upon “all right.” Until such time as “alot” is deemed to be correct, academic writers should not employ it. Its appearance will not impress an editor. This writing mistake is No. 3 of 10 Common Writing Errors That Can Spell “Rejection” for Your Manuscript, which are posted elsewhere on The Published Scholar site.
然而，正確來說，用a lot是合乎文法規則的。反觀過去二十年來，越來越多口語字典收錄了alot一字，事實上，真正講究語言的人並不採用此用法。另一個有爭議的字是alright，這個字的接受度雖然較高，但多數語言專家仍堅持使用all right。在alot被承認為正確用法之前，學術論文寫作時應該避免使用此字，因為這樣無法讓審閱的人留下好的正面印象。這樣的寫作錯誤可參照本專頁所張貼之「10 個導致退稿的常見寫作錯誤之三：“ ‘A lot’ Is Not a Word”」。
Thanks for everyone's participation in this week's Spot the Error Contest, it's been fun!
謝謝所有粉絲們參與本周的「你是挑錯的高手嗎?」活動，將實用、有意義的知識和大家交流與分享。
TPS Editorial Team
Posted at 2011-04-28 14:53:58
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