Quote from: walkstall on August 06, 2014, 10:54:53 AM

Love it, but the border needs top go, he can't even spell "Alright".

Quote from: Solar on August 06, 2014, 11:05:12 AM

Love it, but the border needs top go, he can't even spell "Alright".

  He a lib moving to the right.   

Quote from: Solar on August 06, 2014, 11:05:12 AM

Love it, but the border needs top go, he can't even spell "Alright".

All right, there's a nit to be picked here, and you know the board's unofficial Grammar und Schpelling Nazi^TM is right behind you.... 

The spelling on the sign is quite correct. Lamentably, the spelling you suggest is considered by some to be also correct, though it would be a rather odd usage of the conglomeration.

The combo version 'alright' is generally reserved for lending a sense of finality to a statement. On returning from a vacation in El Salvador, you might claim, "Oh, it was hot down there alright!" Commenting on a fleeing bank robber, you might say, "He was headed for the state line alright!" It's important to note that 'all right' would serve precisely the same purpose.

Its defenders claim 'alright' is legitimate the way words like 'altogether' and 'already' are. But notwithstanding its prevalent use as a sentence-ender, as illustrated above, 'alright' has exactly the same meaning as 'all right.' Obviously, 'altogether' and 'all together' mean different things, and certainly 'already' does not mean 'all ready.' On the other hand, 'alright' has been criticized as laziness, a careless and needless abuse of two quite simple words.

The online Oxford Dictionary says it this way:

QuoteIs it acceptable to write alright as one word, rather than two separate ones? For example:

She calls them whenever she is travelling to assure them she is alright.

Similar 'merged' words such as altogether and already have been accepted in standard English for a very long time, so there is no logical reason to object to the one-word form alright. Nevertheless, many people dislike it and regard it as incorrect, so it's best to avoid using alright in formal writing. Write it as two separate words instead:

She calls them whenever she is travelling to assure them she is all right.

Grammar Girl at www.quickanddirtytips.com says this:

QuoteWell, as grammarian Bill Walsh puts it in his book Lapsing Into a Comma, "We word nerds have known since second grade that alright is not all right". He was talking about "alright" as one word. It's not OK.

Another style guide [Chicago Manual of Style] agrees, saying that "alright" (one word) is a misspelling of "all right" (two words), which means "adequate," "permissible," or "satisfactory." So you might hear the two-word phrase in sentences such as these: "His singing was just all right" or "Is it all right if I wait outside?"

Yes, I've beaten this one to death all right. You're welcome.

Quote from: TboneAgain on August 06, 2014, 12:08:46 PM
All right, there's a nit to be picked here, and you know the board's unofficial Grammar und Schpelling Nazi^TM is right behind you.... 

The spelling on the sign is quite correct. Lamentably, the spelling you suggest is considered by some to be also correct, though it would be a rather odd usage of the conglomeration.

The combo version 'alright' is generally reserved for lending a sense of finality to a statement. On returning from a vacation in El Salvador, you might claim, "Oh, it was hot down there alright!" Commenting on a fleeing bank robber, you might say, "He was headed for the state line alright!" It's important to note that 'all right' would serve precisely the same purpose.

Its defenders claim 'alright' is legitimate the way words like 'altogether' and 'already' are. But notwithstanding its prevalent use as a sentence-ender, as illustrated above, 'alright' has exactly the same meaning as 'all right.' Obviously, 'altogether' and 'all together' mean different things, and certainly 'already' does not mean 'all ready.' On the other hand, 'alright' has been criticized as laziness, a careless and needless abuse of two quite simple words.

The online Oxford Dictionary says it this way:

Grammar Girl at [url=http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/all-right-versus-alright?page=1]www.quickanddirtytips.com says this:

Yes, I've beaten this one to death all right. You're welcome.

Simbly faskanating!
I love the books title: "Lapsing Into a Comma"

Checking Grammar Girl, I found this little tidbit.

It seems pretty simple: go ahead and use "all right" as two words, and stay away from "alright" as one word. But the esteemed Brian Garner (6) notes that "alright" as one word "may be gaining a shadowy acceptance in British English." And the American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style (7) seems to contradict itself. It states that "alright" as one word "has never been accepted as standard" but it then goes on to explain that "all right" as two words and "alright" as one word have two distinct meanings. It gives the example of the sentence "The figures are all right." When you use "all right" as two words, the sentence means "the figures are all accurate." When you write "The figures are alright," with "alright" as one word, this source explains that the sentence means "the figures are satisfactory." I'm not sure what to make of this contradiction.

Quote from: Solar on August 06, 2014, 12:50:11 PM
Simbly faskanating!
I love the books title: "Lapsing Into a Comma"

Checking Grammar Girl, I found this little tidbit.

It seems pretty simple: go ahead and use "all right" as two words, and stay away from "alright" as one word. But the esteemed Brian Garner (6) notes that "alright" as one word "may be gaining a shadowy acceptance in British English." And the American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style (7) seems to contradict itself. It states that "alright" as one word "has never been accepted as standard" but it then goes on to explain that "all right" as two words and "alright" as one word have two distinct meanings. It gives the example of the sentence "The figures are all right." When you use "all right" as two words, the sentence means "the figures are all accurate." When you write "The figures are alright," with "alright" as one word, this source explains that the sentence means "the figures are satisfactory." I'm not sure what to make of this contradiction.

I love the quirks of the language. English is said to be one of the most difficult languages to master because it is so horribly 'irregular,' meaning that there really aren't any hard and fast rules. I studied Latin for three years in high school; the difference is quite literally stunning. In terms of discipline and structure, Latin is a stuffy big-city men's club, while American English is a Kentucky beer joint.

American English is a mish-mash of many languages. Perhaps more than many other countries, the US seems historically willing to allow the language to mutate and evolve, certainly more so than countries like France, which polices the French language assiduously, and officially rejects attempts by its own citizens to, for example, 'Americanize' the tongue. Japanese and Chinese are often cited as difficult to master for foreigners because of their complexity; English is difficult because of its tendency to randomness.

Eventually, 'alright' and 'all right' may become two different things in the way that 'all most' and 'almost' or 'already' and 'all ready' have. (I started to say 'already have.') And of course, when that happens, there will be a prescribed way of using each term. But at this point, I don't think 'alright' has developed a personality of its own sufficient to select it in favor of the generally-preferred 'all right.'

Just a couple pennies' worth of whatever from the board's unofficial Grammar und Schpelling Nazi^TM. 

When in doubt, spell it out --- all right?

Quote from: quiller on August 06, 2014, 08:02:18 PM
When in doubt, spell it out --- all right?

All right.

Quote from: TboneAgain on August 06, 2014, 09:33:22 PM
All right.

The sad part is, this is what I was taught back in the 60s, even remember the spelling test.
Never was taught the rule of "If it's not All Right, it's all wrong."

Yo habla press 1 for English?

Now that we appear to be alright with the word "all right", perhaps we could explore "cleave".

"A wife will cleave to her husband." 

"A knight with a broadsword can cleave an opponent from crown to groin."

Grammar Girl describes "cleave" as a Janus Word.

Quote from: PeterR on August 08, 2014, 08:38:47 PM
Now that we appear to be alright with the word "all right", perhaps we could explore "cleave".

"A wife will cleave to her husband." 

"A knight with a broadsword can cleave an opponent from crown to groin."

Grammar Girl describes "cleave" as a Janus Word.

Cleave is the root of cleavage. There is plenty that's all right with cleavage. Janus I'm not so sure about.

Quote from: quiller on August 08, 2014, 09:25:28 PM
Cleave is the root of cleavage. There is plenty that's all right with cleavage. Janus I'm not so sure about.

Janus was the Roman two-faced god. Our month of January is named for him, as it's a time of looking back at the old year and forward to the new. I've never heard of him being used to describe words.

The idea is that a Janus word can have opposite meanings. In the case of 'cleave,' in the Biblical marriage example it means to cling or adhere closely to. In the more common usage these days, it means to split something in two. The meanings aren't precisely opposite, but pretty close. Your 'cleavage' example derives from the second meaning, though it may inspire behavior more in line with the first. Incidentally, though we use only one spelling, the two definitions have different ancestor words.

Here's a classic depiction of Janus, so you can see what the buzz is about.

Quote from: TboneAgain on August 08, 2014, 09:38:51 PM
Janus was the Roman two-faced god. Our month of January is named for him, as it's a time of looking back at the old year and forward to the new. I've never heard of him being used to describe words.

The idea is that a Janus word can have opposite meanings. In the case of 'cleave,' in the Biblical marriage example it means to cling or adhere closely to. In the more common usage these days, it means to split something in two. The meanings aren't precisely opposite, but pretty close. Your 'cleavage' example derives from the second meaning, though it may inspire behavior more in line with the first. Incidentally, though we use only one spelling, the two definitions have different ancestor words.

Here's a classic depiction of Janus, so you can see what the buzz is about.

Hmm...
Two Heads are Better than One.

Quote from: quiller on August 08, 2014, 09:25:28 PM
Cleave is the root of cleavage. There is plenty that's all right with cleavage. Janus I'm not so sure about.

I'll cleave to that!