Can you use alright

As time unfolds, however, we see alright being used with greater frequency. As the below graph shows, from the s onward, alright has seen its use increase considerably, signaling that it may eventually become standard as other words such as altogether and already once did.

Altogether and already are much older and much more established words, however, dating back to the Middle Ages. Alright is a relatively new variant, with a first recorded use in For this reason, the two-word all right still dominates in popular usage and is much more heavily preferred, being used at a rate 8 times that of the one-word alright.

I'm my humble and uninformed opinion they are both correct, but are a little different. Theo Belaire Theo Belaire 5 5 bronze badges. So 'alright' is all right, but 'allright' is wrong, at least in my book.

Fixee Fixee 3, 14 14 gold badges 32 32 silver badges 52 52 bronze badges. So, how would you distinguish between Your homework is all right and Your homework is alright? I would call the latter "completely wrong. Language evolves. I'd distinguish between all right , meaning completely correct, and alright , meaning "acceptable".

Makes sense in a way, but I think you're alone in making this distinction. In particular, it'd be hard to distinguish these when spoken rather than written. The British Shorter Oxford Dictionary as of lists alright as frequent sp.

The Australian Macquarie Dictionary as of simply has adj. Personally I always use alright even though I'm aware some pedants might not approve. Larry Terrell Larry Terrell 1 1 silver badge 4 4 bronze badges. WS2 WS2 Thirty years later and half a world away, our dutifully bookcovered, California middlebrow, Houghton Mifflin textbooks opined just the opposite: " Alright is all wrong.

Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Linked 2. Related Hot Network Questions. We've Added New Words! Are all right and alright interchangeable? All right has a range of meanings including:. The form alright is a one-word spelling of the phrase all right that made its first appearance in the s.

Alright is commonly used in written dialogue and informal writing, but all right is the only acceptable form in edited writing. The first is simply that no established dictionary fully accepts alright as a correct spelling. The second reason is that in some contexts, alright will not work, and in all contexts, all right will never fail. Another clarifying phrase would be helpful to resolve the ambiguity, but in either case, the spelling would be considered correct.

If you always use two words, you can never go wrong. The battle of alright vs. If you use alright informally in emails or texts to friends, however, your recipients will certainly know what it means.