It has come to my attention that some misguided people don't think the spelling "alright" (which I used recently) is all right. For more about this debate see here which concludes:
And perhaps the most important factor in determining whether alright is acceptable or not is that the Microsoft spell checker does not flag it as an error. This gives millions the justification to use the term with impunity.
This is true of the blogger spell checker also. If it had objected I would probably have changed to "all right". But it didn't and I don't think it should have. "Alright" is in fact common usage and as Pam Peters notes "all right" "injects the distracting sense of “all correct.”" which was not my intended meaning.
Raw data: A cautionary tale
7 hours ago
There is the following practical consideration: Do you want your readers to concentrate their attention on what you are trying to tell them, or do you want them to be distracted by your spelling? Since nearly everyone agrees that "all right" is all right, few, if any, will be distracted if you use it. On the other hand the many who do not think that "alright" is all right will be distracted if you use it.
ReplyDeleteThe way I learned it is:
ReplyDeleteAlright is Alwrong