Answer: All right vs. Alright

[kay-brooke.livejournal.com]

callistosh65 asks: When do you use "all right" versus "alright"?

With examples from Psych.


Simple answer: You never use "alright," because it isn't accepted as a real word. Despite the growing usage of the spelling "alright" and the fact that it's been showing up in written records for over a century, "alright" is considered a misspelling of "all right."

So that's easy enough. Whenever you want to write "alright," just write "all right" and you can never go wrong. This is true for any dialect of English.

Of course, in the real world, it's a little more complicated. The issue of "all right" vs. "alright" and whether the latter should be accepted as its own word has been the subject of fierce debate among grammar experts for as long as the word has been around. So let's take a closer look at the term.

The phrase "all right" can be used as an adjective or an adverb, and has two major definitions.

1. Acceptable, agreeable, good, okay.

"I have an idea, Spencer," said Lassiter. "You should let the actual police handle this. That all right with you?"

2. All correct.

Shawn smirked, certain that the numbers he'd seen in his "vision" were all right.

The spelling of "alright" most likely comes from conflating "all right" with phrases of similar construction; namely, "all together" and "all ready." Both of these phrases are similar to words ("altogether" and "already") that are distinct and not interchangeable with the two-word phrase. It's not hard to see why people would think "all right" fits into that group and "alright" must therefore be a word.

This is probably a case of language evolving. Because of the conflation with similar words, "alright" is usually thought to have a different definition from "all right," just like "altogether" and "all together" have separate meanings. Many writers typically mean to give "alright" the "acceptable, agreeable, good" definition above, and reserve "all right" for the "all correct" definition.

"Buddy, you're just going to have to trust me, alright?" said Shawn.

It seems that the spelling "alright" is becoming more accepted (especially, according to one of my sources, in British English), and if you use it in writing, chances are most people won't look at you askance. But it is technically still considered a misspelling of "all right," so it would probably be easiest to just use that spelling every time. Certainly, use "all right" for all formal or academic writing.

Comments

[theeverdream.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post - I love it when people are able to understand "proper" grammar but also that language evolves and to explain it effectively.

[slartibartfast.livejournal.com]

Same. A lot of people just list off the rules. This is refreshing. :)

[starwatcher]

.
I 'hear' the dialog in my head when I read. In speaking, I can hear a difference between 'alright' and 'all right', and most characters (not all) use the former.

So I solve the problem by using 'all right' in the narrative part of a story, and 'alright' in dialog, if it's in character. (Mr. Spock or Teyla would never say 'alright'.)
.

[erinm-4600.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Thank you, thank you THANK YOU.

[skroberts]

Sweet!

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

Thank you! An editor for a zine convinced me of the merits of all right, and I've been using it ever since. But it is interesting to know for sure that 'alright' is *not* all right.*g* I've seen it so often in fics - in Pros especially, which is, of course, a British show.

[dark-weezing.livejournal.com]

I don't usually make the error in my fiction, but I'm glad the issue is brought up. Whenever I re-edit my previous works, I'll have to keep this tip in mind. Thanks.

[wanted-a-pony.livejournal.com]

I don't remember seeing "alright" when I was in school (mid-'60s thru late '70s in the U.S.) or for some time afterward, either in popular writing or fanzines. I don't know what the process is called but I theorize that "alright" started as a misspelling of oral clichés, similar to "alot" (for a lot) and "coz" (for 'cause = because). I really don't believe that writers who use "alright" or "alot" think they have different meanings than "all right" or "a lot."

These days I tend to regard writers who use these spellings where standard English is appropriate as too lazy or poorly educated to run a spell-checker. In fiction writing it may not matter so immediately (& may in fact be an intentional stylistic choice), but in writing for a larger or specialized audience I regard it as a sign that the writer may be similarly sloppy in other respects.

[kay-brooke.livejournal.com]

"Alright" has definitely been popping up more and more in recent years.

I don't think "alright" and "alot" can be directly compared, because while "alot" is a straight up misspelling, I have known people who really did think "alright" and "all right" were two different phrases with different meanings. So in that case I do think the confusion there lies with comparing it to words like "although." But it's true that "alright" is probably also just a misspelling by those who don't know better.

The problem with running this specific word through a spellchecker is that not all spellcheckers see it as a misspelling. For example, both WordPerfect and OpenOffice Writer on my computer flag it as wrong, but my Microsoft Word and Firefox spellchecker don't (I've never used "alright" in writing, so I wouldn't have added it to the spellchecker dictionary). So it's not as simple as just running it through a spellchecker.

[lmichelle599.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)