Myriad vs Alot - What's the difference?
myriad | alot |
A countless number or multitude (of specified things)
(modifying a singular noun) Multifaceted, having innumerable elements
* 1931 , William Faulkner, Sanctuary , Vintage 1993, p. 131:
* 2011' April 6–19, Kara Krekeler, "Researchers at Washington U. have 'itch' to cure problem", ''West End Word'', ' 40 (7), p. 8:
(modifying a plural noun) Great in number; innumerable, multitudinous
* 2013 September 28, , "
* 2000 , Teaching Secondary English, ed. Daniel Sheridan. [in a tenth-grade student's paper]
* 2003 , Matt Janacone, Three by the Sea [http://print.google.com/print?id=CesAE2xl68QC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&sig=X8TjIfaBBBesXWW1E38K-BUtUPU]
* 2005 , Aphrodite Jones, Cruel Sacrifice [From the suicidal patient's own writing.] [http://print.google.com/print?id=KtlMQCtBzygC&pg=PA248&lpg=PA248&sig=2mA_bCMZr0l0dCLfhRWe4cBdmd4]
alot]
* 2004 , The Cambridge Guide to English Usage'' also compares ''alot'' to ''awhile.'' It states ''alot'' to be “still regarded as nonstandard” and notes 50 appearances in the British National Corpus, “almost entirely from three sources: e-mail, TV autocue data, and TV newscripts.” It suggests that some usages of ''alot'' in typewritten use are to be considered merely typos of the standard ''a lot though its appearance in handwriting and typescript is “more significant, as the shadow of things to come.” [http://print.google.com/print?id=UA5syoe1kc0C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&sig=rtyA7J19FLKXuJ-65S78fDEnON8]
As nouns the difference between myriad and alot
is that myriad is while alot is .As an adjective myriad
is (modifying a singular noun) multifaceted, having innumerable elements.As an adverb alot is
.myriad
English
(wikipedia myriad)Noun
(en noun)- Earth hosts a myriad of animals.
Usage notes
Used as an adjective (see below), 'myriad' requires neither an article before it nor a preposition after. Because of this, some consider the usage described in sense 2 above, where 'myriad' acts as part of a nominal (or noun) group (that is, "a myriad of animals"), to be tautological.Adjective
(-)- one night he would be singing at the barred window and yelling down out of the soft myriad darkness of a May night; the next night he would be gone [...].
- "As a clinician, it's a difficult symptom to treat," Cornelius said. "The end symptom may be the same, but what's causing it may be myriad ."
- Earth hosts myriad animals.
London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):
- Driven by a perceived political need to adopt a hard-line stance, Mr. Cameron’s coalition government has imposed myriad new restrictions, the aim of which is to reduce net migration to Britain to below 100,000.
See also
* plethora ----alot
English
Adverb
(-)Noun
(-)- There was alot' of sex discrimination in the 60’s. For one thing there was no sports for girls and in ' alot of schools the female teachers were not allowed to get married or they could be fired. [http://print.google.com/print?id=ejtdcf-taQkC&pg=PA346&lpg=PA346&sig=t0Sp87KqxsH-UGYklzl72NMUz1Q]
- It was alot' of lumber, '''alot''' of condos, and Joe did not know '''alot''' about either of them, only that it was '''alot''' of money; he hated to throw his money into something he did not know ' alot about.
- She talked about death: “My philosophy on life is it could be alot' better. Like I would’ve never gotten into this mess if I wouldn’t have tried to commit suicide. Actually I was just trying to make myself sick. But then again it could be '''''alot worse! [...]”
Usage notes
This spelling of "a lot" is frequent in informal writing but not generally accepted by arbiters of English usage. Others view it as a legitimate s. * 1993 , The Columbia Guide to Standard American English'' calls ''alot “substandard” and notes that it is “increasingly found in Informal correspondence and student writing” and “has as yet received no sanction in print except on the op-ed and sports pages.”[http://books.google.com/books?id=L2ChiO2yEZ0C&q=alot* 1996 , The American Heritage Book of English Usage'' states that “''alot'' is still considered an error in print” but notes that standard words have formed by fusion of the article with a noun, such as ''another'' and ''awhile,'' and suggests the possibility that ''alot may, like them, eventually enter standard usage. [http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0200.html] * 2004 , Jack Lynch Guide to Grammar and Style (entry dated 2004) flatly states this to be a two-word expression. [http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/a.html