After posting the Mean Ol’ Schoolmarm distinction for when to use I or Me, I received several emails requesting dissemination of many other grammar faux pas, which means I am studying grammar rules this summer.
Studying? YES, STUDYING!
I have to get these right, because: 1) I teach writing in my homeschooling cooperative, and grammar is an important component of writing *DER*; 2) because whatever publishes on the internet gets sealed in public databases for all eternity, amen; and 3) The readers here in the Homeschooling section of The Pioneer Woman take these rules very seriously (as well you should).
I’m stating for the record right now that I realize many of you are far more suited to expound on grammar than I am, so feel free to post corrections in the comments.
All right, already…what’s the scoop?
When I set out to write this post I was certain all right was correct, and that alright was all wrong, but as is often the case when I begin digging, I discovered there may be a grey area to this seemingly black and white issue.
According to Grammar Girl, alright is not a real word–or at best, a misspelling of all right, which means “adequate, permissible, or satisfactory.”
Grammar Girl references Garner’s Modern American Usage which explains why the singular word alright “may be gaining a shadowy acceptance in British English,” but then quickly turns to cast doubt on the same supposition by citing the American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style — “Despite the appearance of alright in the works of such well-known writers as Flannery O’Connor, Langston Hughes, and James Joyce, the merger of all and right has never been accepted as standard.”
Two things I found interesting reading the ‘American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style’ are that:
1. The singular words already and altogether are not considered misspellings in the same way as alright, but this is probably due to the fact they became single words back in the Middle Ages, whereas alright has only been around for a little over a century.
2. Even though the word alright is considered a misspelling in formal writing, it is still widely used in informal writing, “especially in dialogue and in first-person narration to convey the impression of speech.”
The Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary agrees with ‘American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style’, which declares that some critics insist that alright has been incorrect since the early twentieth century.
While less frequent, the one-word term is still commonly used in fictional dialogue. An interesting tidbit mentioned in the Usage Discussion at ‘Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary’ was “The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence.”
So which is it? All right or Alright?
Deciding whether to use all right or alright appears to be more or less contingent on HOW one is using the word. Oxford Dictionaries Online tells us “there is no logical reason to object to the one-word form alright” based on the similarly merged words altogether and already, but warns to avoid it when writing formally.
Since scholars and grammarians are still debating whether alright is all right, how might we want to use alright in writing (if we decide we want to use the nonstandard variant at all)?
One example is found in ‘The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas’, where Gertrude Stein wrote, “The first two years of the medical school were alright.”
Stein’s usage is in keeping with a statement in the long-winded, but entertaining post by the Word Detective, which says: “Bergen and Cornela Evans, in their ‘Dictionary of Contemporary Usage,’ points out that there’s a case to be made for alright. Using alright as a synonym for ‘O.K.’ or ‘satisfactory,’ they note, ‘would allow us to make the distinction between ‘the answers are alright‘ (satisfactory) and ‘the answers were all right‘ (every one of them).”
To throw a useful mnemonic (1) on the table, “Don’t worry about getting it all right, alright?
Or, you could just go with the flow and take a tip from Bob Marley’s lyrics from his hit song, Three Little Birds.
“Don’t worry about a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.”
Cast your opinion in the comments. I’m all ears…errrmm…eyes.
Off-line References
1. Taggart, Caroline, and J.A. Wines. My Grammar and I…or Should That Be Me?: How to Speak and Write it Right. Pleasantville: Reader’s Digest, 2009. Print.
Heather Sanders is a leading homeschooling journalist who inspires homeschooling families across the nation. Married to Jeff, Heather lives in the East Texas Piney Woods and homeschools her three children, Emelie, Meredith and Kenny.