I have used up considerable amount of ink marking "alright" as all wrong on student papers - and the cause is lost, as is the fight over using "impact" as a verb and "at" as an adverb ("Where are you at"?).  And now, in my dotage, I've come to the opinion that these developments might be good (along with other wonders of the language such as "conversate" as an intransitive verb), even though at one time, I took up cudgel against the demons out to change the language (well, I stil get upset over "at" as an adverb - it's a preposition, damn it).
 
In fact, using "alright" as one word might have benefits in that "all right" as two words might slip into explitive status ("Well, all right!") or to express other specific meanings ("God's in his heaven and all's right with the world.").

Geoff Layton
 
Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2011 17:01:57 -0700
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Usage question
To: [log in to unmask]

In journalism, which tends to be a bit less fussy than us education types, the use of alright is strictly forbidden (even the 2011 AP Style Guide says so). I find it curious just as you say it is.
 
Paul D.
 
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).


From: "Myers, Marshall" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sun, August 7, 2011 11:20:40 AM
Subject: Re: Usage question

Paul,

 

Alright or all right is a curious one.

 

Some sources accept both forms, since alright dates back into the 19th century.

 

But the book we use here for Freshman English, ST MARTIN’S HANDBOOK, does not accept alright, concluding:  “Avoid the spelling of alright.”

 

Language is comparable to fashion: Spelling, among other things, is acceptable if the vast majority of people say it is. And we have got some rather strange spellings for certain words. Pneumonia and doubt are good examples. Doubt is spelled with a b because that letter appears in the Latin language from which it was borrowed. Pneumonia is spelled with the p probably because it was spelled that way in Attic Greek, and Greek was one of the language of scholarship, like Latin. Those examples don’t make a whole lot of sense, but we have agreed that they are spelled that way.

 

So I would use all right in formal writing, and alright in less formal settings. It is very likely that in the future the alright  will be an acceptable form for both formal and informal writing. In my mind that will be a good day.

 

I hope that answers your question.

 

Marshall

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul E. Doniger
Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2011 10:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Usage question

 

It has often puzzled me that the spelling 'alright' has never been accepted as standard. It clearly could distinguish a difference between "Completely correct" (all right) and "completely safe" (alright) in meaning (similar to all together and altogether). Has anyone on the list any information or experience about this usage issue that would explain why the usage police won't accept this spelling?

 
Thanks,
 
Paul D.


 

"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).

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