According to Garner's Modern American Usage, "Alright" for "all right" has never been accepted as standard in American English (although Garner notes that Gertrude Stein used it--"not much of a recommendation," he says). Apparently it is more common in British English.
Garner says no to "alright," and so do I.
9 comments:
I don't think I would use it in the narrative voice, but I do use it in dialogue. It occurs a lot among the younger characters of my novel, set in 1900 Prague in places where OK would have been correct for contemporary characters, but the latter felt anachronistic compared to alright.
I wouldn't use "alright" even in that case. The pronunciation is the same as "all right," so why spell it differently in dialogue? As for okay or OK, it's been around since the mid 19th C, so maybe it wouldn't be anachronistic to use for 1900.
I can be a crank about ths. I will mark it every single time in a workshop manuscript, even though the discussion is more properly concerned with content. I'll let your Decorative Capitals slide (for now), maybe even your who/whom hiccups, especially if it's in dialogue. But not "alright." "Alright" is not just informal, it's wrong
I don't agree with Cliff or Margaret here. One fact about myself which is probably connected with me being an aspie is that often I involuntarily see words spelt in my mind when I say and hear them. The spelt version in my mind is always "alright" so I fully support this usage. That's obviously not a persuasive argument, but it is an explanation of how I've reached my point of view.
But the logical conclusion of Cliff's position is that language should never change. The phrase "all right" is not descriptively accurate because when someone says "That's all right", they mean that the situation is ok. They do not mean "All of that is right". So it's misleading to put the word "all" into the phrase.
Regarding who/whom hiccups I'd go further than Margaret. Unless the character is meant to be extremely well-educated or pedantic, it would generally be very bad style to have the character use "whom" in a sentence -- hardly anyone uses it in speech.
Paul Epstein
I'm not sure it is more common in British English. At least, not in mine! :) It just feels like a badly spelled version of "all right" - I can't even "hear" the difference caused by the running together of the two words.
While I embrace change in language, and have often been guilty of nudging it along, I still prefer "all right." I suppose it will succumb, but not yet, in my opinion.
Garner's usage book is awesome!
"The documents were all right."
"The documents were alright."
Is there a difference here?
I think there is.
One is a quantifier and the other a qualifier.
"Alright" isn't a word. Yet.
The difference between 'All Right' and 'Alright' is astounding. 'Alright' needs to stop. It is so wrong that it is offensive! In speech it is different, because unless the speaker is very articulate it is difficult to tell the difference among the two.
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