The Alright All Right Dilemma
Sep. 7th, 2012 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hells_half_acreI have a problem with the words "all right" or the word "alright" depending on the day.
My problem is that it causes one of those...conflict thingies in my head.
1. I believe in the evolution of language. I believe that "alright" should be a word and that is how it should be spelled. I think it reflects how people SAY "all right" - as one word, not two.
2. I really really hate it when I spell things wrong or have gross grammatical errors.
So, I never know when I'm writing whether I should write "alright" even though I know that it's blatantly wrong, because I want to encourage it to be officially accepted as the standard spelling - or if I should be writing "all right" because that is the proper thing to do, and I have a Masters, damn it!
The only way I have solved this so far is to avoid the words "all right/alright" like the plague and use "okay" instead or some other word. Of course, for those who read my Demented'verse, you'll probably have noticed that I use "alright" all the time in it - a fact that actually makes my fingers itch when I read it. That being said, when I read "all right" in other people's fics, I don't like it, I want them to use "alright."
Anyway, I don't know what to do about this problem....and somehow I doubt this keeps other people up at night.
My problem is that it causes one of those...conflict thingies in my head.
1. I believe in the evolution of language. I believe that "alright" should be a word and that is how it should be spelled. I think it reflects how people SAY "all right" - as one word, not two.
2. I really really hate it when I spell things wrong or have gross grammatical errors.
So, I never know when I'm writing whether I should write "alright" even though I know that it's blatantly wrong, because I want to encourage it to be officially accepted as the standard spelling - or if I should be writing "all right" because that is the proper thing to do, and I have a Masters, damn it!
The only way I have solved this so far is to avoid the words "all right/alright" like the plague and use "okay" instead or some other word. Of course, for those who read my Demented'verse, you'll probably have noticed that I use "alright" all the time in it - a fact that actually makes my fingers itch when I read it. That being said, when I read "all right" in other people's fics, I don't like it, I want them to use "alright."
Anyway, I don't know what to do about this problem....and somehow I doubt this keeps other people up at night.
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Date: 2012-09-08 01:02 pm (UTC)Usage Discussion of ALRIGHT
The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing
<i>Usage Discussion of ALRIGHT
The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing <the first two years of medical school were alright — Gertrude Stein>.
First Known Use of ALRIGHT
1887</i> From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
If it's okay by them, it should be good enough for me.
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Date: 2012-09-08 07:14 pm (UTC)But GOOD TO KNOW. Thanks. Oxford says to avoid "alright" simply because people don't like it, even though it's just like "altogether" and "already". I guess it just suffers from being new.
It's definitely nice to see that it's "quite common in fictional dialogue" which is always when I want to use it the most.