Heart and Mind

"All Right" is not all right, alright?

You may have noticed that in the previous blog entry, I used the word "alright" and followed it by a "(sic)."

"Alright" is not drawing a squiggly red line from the spell checker in this particular piece of software I'm using; it seems to acknowledge "alright" as a proper word. Not everyone does.

Apparently it's hotly debated by scholars and grammarians, which is news to me. I have always thought it was universally panned by the experts without much debate. But I'm glad to see that some people are fighting for its use. I believe "alright," like "already," is a word that should be valid and used.

Know why? Quite simply, "alright," for my money, means something totally different than "all right."

"All right" reads as though you are saying it is "all (completely) right." But in common language, people use that phrase (the one I tend to think of as being "alright") to mean, "okay" or "acceptable." That's decidedly not the same as "all right."

If you someone asked, "What do you think of Bob?" and the verbal answer was, "Bob's all right" that does not mean he's "all" right. In fact, it kind of implies that he's not "all" right. If he were, the response might be, "Bob's a great guy" or "Oh, he's terrific" or "Bob is a good friend of mine." "Bob's all right" often means he's simply not wrong, not bad news, not "all wrong." He's more right than wrong. Seems like it would be better to say he's "alright," simply because it eliminates the word "all" from the spelling.

Or consider if someone says, "Rain is all right; as long as it's not snow, we're fine." In that context they are saying that the rain is acceptable if that's what has to be, because it's much more preferable then snow. Certainly no one thinks rain is "all" right, like a sunny, temperate day. Compared to snow, the rain is alright, but not all right.

Or if someone is asked how the chicken dish at the wedding was, if the response is, "It was all right," that's hardly a ringing endorsement. It usually means, "Eh...I ate it, it tasted acceptable enough, but was nothing special." That's hardly "all" right.

Funny, in the context I used it—"Oh, they rush [the Christmas season], alright—it not only didn't mean "all" right, but it wasn't even really synonymous with "okay," either. It simply was used for emphasis. It almost was synonymous with the phrase, "To be sure." But it's not sure to me how that fits in with "all right," but it seems like more of an "alright" than the two word "all right."

No matter how you slice it, I'm all about using "alright." It's acceptable. Therefore, it's alright. And, ironically, in this case, it's kind of even "all" right to me. But I still would opt to spell it as "alright," because most of the time in this context, it's not all right.

I think "all right" should only be used in the very literal sense, like when you say, "The answers he gave on the quiz were all right, so he scored a 100% grade." In that case, it's indisputable. And how did he do on the quiz? Alright? No! He did more than alright; he aced it.

Alright?

posted by Steve @ 9:58 PM