Is it all right to use alright?

Is it all right to use alright?

Or is it another English/American thing.

American English prefers – all right.  British English accepts both – all right or alright

1.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (3/e, Houghton Mifflin, 1996) has this in its usage notes:

All right, usually pronounced as if it were a single word, probably should have followed the same orthographic development as already and altogether. But despite its use by a number of reputable authors, the spelling alright has never been accepted as a standard variant, and the writer who chooses to risk that spelling had best be confident that readers will acknowledge it as a token of wilful unconventionality rather than as a mark of ignorance.

2.

Michael Swan, in Practical English Usage (2/e, Oxford University Press, 1995), says:

The standard spelling is all right. Alright is common, but many people consider it incorrect.

3.

Brian A. Garner, in The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style (Oxford University Press, 2000), comments:

All right. So spelled. The one-word spelling (alright) has never been accepted as standard in American English.

4. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (Random House, 1999) states succinctly:

"all right (never alright)."

5. Ann Raimes, in Keys for Writers (Houghton Mifflin, 1996), says:

"Alright is nonstandard. All right is standard."

6. 

 The Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (HarperCollins, 1995):

Under “alright” - alright. See all right

Under “all right” - all right; also spelled alright

in the TECHNOLOGICAL AGE

I do enjoy this information technology, as we called it in the 1990's. The terminology is difficult to keep up with, but there are websites like Webopedia, netlingo or Matisse, to help you understand the latest. Today's internet word of the day is critical mass - a term originating in nuclear physics and adopted into business-speak.  

Different words pop up with each new development AND instead of making up new words we  reuse old ones as brand names or technical terms - Apple, bit, bandwidth, Blackberry, bluetooth, Cloud, dropbox,  Java, mouse, software and tag  - with more added daily.  It's a patchwork of old and new.

When I check my facebook I find as many updates from Art, Medicine, Engineering, Poetry, Writing, Nature, Herb and Craft groups I've 'liked' as I see from my friends.  It's so exciting.  Some days it's a smorgasbord and others it's a feast of information and creativity I can hardly contain. 

But if I get tired of all this I pop over to YouTube and watch Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company make darling little baby covers from Jelly Rolls or Layer Cakes - the lingo is there too, but this is a much nicer world of patches.

As recently as last year I was irritated when visitors dropped at least one phone each onto the dinner table and 'played' with them throughout the visit. But now that an iphone has taken up residence in our house I can see what a wonderful toy it is. When you hold in your hand a device that can check the weather and email, look up the TV program, find an address with a map as well as taking photos, making calls and sending text messages, we know we have completely overtaken Dick Tracy and all that was imagined in the 1950s.

And Dick didn't even get to acronyms!  I can't give in to everything so if you find yourself ROFLYourAO or tgif-ing  .... well, I've just lost interest.  Acronyms started with phone texting and now with keyboards on every i thing acronyms are no longer necessary.  Come on, you can spell great without using 8, and to is just as easy as 2, lets not destroy the written language - but I am glad to see that someone has found a way to make money out of trying to oversee cyber space and redesign these toys or it really would be a big pigs breakfast.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, older people (that is over 65) are less likely to use the internet - well duh!  I know of 5 people in their 70's who use email and search engines daily, and now that I look at the page, the good old bureau of stats only publishes information up to 2010 anyway,  so what do they know about today?

I'm sure older people who use the internet at work also use it at home and will continue to use it after retirement - and their older brothers and sisters jumped in too, even before it was common to have PCs at home our libraries catered for retirees clicking on Ancestor.com or diagnose-your-own-disease sites and emailing children overseas.

For those who are already over 75, not having access to the internet can put them at a disadvantage - 

- some banks charge for paper statements, to encourage on-line banking, 

- when paying bills often only Bpay or direct debit is accepted,

- the Post Office no longer handles payment for many of the services it once did, 

- if paying in person, some cashiers frown at the sight of a cheque book,  

- instructions for new appliances are on the 'net to be downloaded,

- some products can only be purchased on-line.

So if you have a dear old granny, or Mum, make sure they are coping - it might be nice to offer help in this area. Life in the techno age could be a little hard to follow if you were born before 1930.

UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU SAY

Have you ever noticed that some people speak in code?  And, others speak in riddles?  I'm not talking about what I call 'in-speak', language used within industry such as a salesman calling a sold car a 'spot'.  Some people are just difficult to understand because of vague references or confused meanings. 

It could be geographical, even within Australia.  I know one family from Victoria who use 'sayings' so strange to me that I was surprised to find that they were really old sayings with meanings - though maybe the meaning applied today doesn't have much to do with the original.

The one that really bothered me was - playing ducks and drakes.  The meaning I get from the way I've heard it used seems to be - to play games and make a mess of things.  So ... to the search engine.

The first known reference in print to playing duck and drakes was in 1585 when it was described as; "A kind of sport or play with an oister shell or stone throwne into the water, and making circles yer it sinke, etc.  It is called a ducke and a drake, and a halfe-penie cake."

Ducks and drakes was the name given to the game of tossing flat, smooth stones across the surface of water  so they skip - commonly called stone skipping or stone skimming today.  To play ducks and drakes with your money is to throw it away, just as if you used coins instead of stones to play the game.

There are references to 'make ducks and drakes' rather than 'play ducks and drakes', which could mean the ripples on the water made by waterfowl.   An example from a play in 1626;   "The poorest ship-boy Might on the Thames make duckes and drakes with pieces Of eight fetchd out of Spayne."

So, to spend one’s time playing ducks and drakes is to waste one’s money and time in idle pleasure; to spend foolishly or recklessly; to throw one's money away  or, to make ducks and drakes of your time or money.  And over years the meaning changed to unreliable and reckless or 'to play fast and loose' which itself means inconstant and unreliable. 

Way back in the 14th century 'Fast-and-loose' was a cheating game played with a stick and a leather strap.  The game was set up in the market place. The strap is folded in half and wound into a coil to form what looks like two identical loops in the centre.   Players are challenged to put the stick into the true centre loop so that when the ends are pulled the stick is held fast by the strap. Bets are laid and the strap pulled. As the operator can change how the ends are pulled the strap falls away loose and the player never wins.  So I suppose that means you'll never win playing fast and loose.

Later on the game was played with a loop or string.  It had a variety of names including; 'Pricking the Garter', 'The Strap' and 'The Australian Belt'. You can see a modern version, played with a looped chain, here - http://revision3.com/scamschool/fastandloose

The other saying this family used a lot had to do with pushing a rope across the stage but the meaning to that is very vague except that it originally had to do with ropes and rigging on a ship. When theatres deveoped to include scenery and raised curtains the old ship riggers were employed to rig and operate the curtains etc and so their seafaring language transferred to land.  I suppose pushing a rope across a stage is not an easy thing to do.

But right now I'm thinking of the cat's cradle we played with wool.........

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

ON WRITING ...

Oh look!  I've pinched the title from a clever writer and added ! to make it mine. On Writing by Steven King is one of the most helpful books I've read. Part biography,  the story of King being run down on the road while jogging and coming back from that - interesting,  and part advice on writing. Amazing. To have that information, from this successful and experienced writer is like finding gold -  or better, the information shared by Steven King changed the way I approach reading and writing.

However,  I am not a Steven King reader, I'm not even sure if I've read any his books, except this one. Certainly not any of his scary stories.

For something like ten years I enjoyed being part of online writing groups. Most of these were critique groups.  All members posted a chapter of whatever they were writing - mostly novels for middle grade readers, around 10 to 14 years. We read and either reviewed these or wrote line by line critiques, which I loved doing, depending on the group.  In one short story group members took turns setting assignments, one every three weeks. We'd all do the assignment and critique the results. Mostly these were to write a story. One of the assignments I set for everyone was to write a story in dialogue only - no speech tags, no descriptions,  just the dialogue - my favourite task. Someone else set us to write about why we write. That was difficult. It was interesting to find this again and read what I'd written back then.

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28.03.2004   Looking at the last few assignments and knowing how far they stretched me, how they have improved my writing and uncovered weaknesses, I wonder just what I want to write and why.

What I know - I like writing for children. I want to give them something, tell them things they would not know if they had not read my story.

But my writing is not cute - no talking teddy bears,  it's not funny - so no Adrian Mole.  It's usually about coping with serious issues like step parents, feelings of rejection, illness, loss... all very serious stuff and in the past rejected by publishers for that reason.  'Subject is too serious'.  So? I'm a serious person!

To improve - to make my stories richer I'd like them to show that in spite of the serious issues we often face life is still wonderful - it's worth it!

What started me on this track? -  I think it's just who I am. I was 'making up' stories at the age of 2 or 3 years. My first story involved a pair of bunnies, with six babies, who adopted another baby who was different.  Yes, I know that's a cutsie-pie story - I had a collection of plastic toy bunnies and as inspired, by the colours. They were all shades of green but one odd one was blue,  so he was different. The adoption didn't change him but they were a family all the same.  30 years later I did just that, took a foster child into my family. It was supposed to be 18 months and ended up more like 18 years plus.

So, looking back at the stories that impressed and inspired me to write - I read all the Secret Seven and Famous Five books at a very young age. I enjoyed them but knew they were not real. I got through the children's classics like Black Beauty, Heidi, Kidnapped, Robinson Crusoe, Tom Sawyer and they were okay but not special. Blinky Bill and the Gumnut babies frightened me and I still avoid Banksia trees.

Two books that made a bit impression on me, because they were much better stories - The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde, (a collection of short stories published in 1888) and The Water Babies by the Rev Charles Kingsley, published in 1963 - such wonderful illustrations. These were the books I loved at 10 years of age. 

So, then onto grown up books, raiding my parent’s collection and the library. More fantasy.  I threw The Carpetbaggers away because at age 12  I thought it was total rubbish - my mother enjoyed reading but usually stuck with the popular titles that everyone else read.  I tried the classics and found idealistic fantasy. I was not easy to please.  Dickens, no, I hated it. Dad's books were mostly war novels and they did keep me busy but only one stands out in memory, The Cruel Sea, by Nicholas Montserrat.  At times scenes from that book pop into my head as if to say ... could you handle this, now?

I picked up The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint Exupery, pub 1943. I'm still learning from the little prince - though try not to be too involved in the story because I fear there is something distasteful there.  The original illustrations are lovely.

But, the greatest treasure I found in my early teens - a little book of incredible beauty, with black line illustrations that I loved. It was The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. This was a little bit of fiction inside a true story. And what a story!  I was inspired.  I wanted to write stories like that, stories that caused the reader to choke on their breath.

The next precious stone for me was Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I bought it from a newstand in the street on the way to a bus stop. I was thrilled to read it.  I read favourite bits over again, talked about it and quoted it.  I knew it wasn't in my personality to write like that, but wow, what a book! It gave me an understanding of the world and how it works.

By this time I was over 21 and devouring every book I could get. Someone gave me The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, to read and I discovered, in that gem, the idea of journey and overcoming. Of course this was in The Water Babies and other stories too, but I hadn't been able to grasp it consciously before.

I don't have these three books on my desk. I don't read them over and over. The spirit of them is inside me. I feel I have absorbed the stories and I'm waiting to see what I have nourished.  I don't plan my writing, I just begin - often not knowing the direction I'm heading in but enjoying the scenery along the way.

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Today, reading over my thoughts from 2004 I am disappointed to find not much has changed. I have not met my goal of being published, apart from a couple of short stories and bits in newspapers and obscure magazines back in the 1990s - nothing that really counts.  And it is probably because I don't work at it like some do - because I do not want to be a salesman. So that's my reason and that's okay.

I have read more books but nothing really outstanding. It is possible I've kept away from outstanding books because life gets in the way of that sort of commitment.  I enjoy all The Number One Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith - simple, sweet philosophy, beautiful tales of gentle people written with understanding - I love them.  

I've also discovered Language Change by Jean Aitchison, and some other similar books,  which release me from becoming what they call a 'word nazi'.  

If I had to pick a modern novelist favourite I'd say Kate Atkinson - her story construction and character building is amazing.  It takes a while to get into step with her but when you do it's like solving a clueless crossword puzzle, an enjoyable achievement. And here it looks like I stopped by the shelf for authors starting with A.

I have been busy with other activates since 2004, enjoyable but time consuming, mostly involving the production of a school yearbook for eight years. I have written very little in that time, except in my head.  There are lots of stories in there.  I know my writing is not literature or philosophy, I just make up stories about made up people -  based on true stories and people, and often any deeper meaning within is invisible to me.  

So now to a blog. This will be writing about things that are not made up and that is actually more difficult. I will continue to write for me though.  Of course writers should write for an audience but I feel the reading of it is not my area; the subject, the story and writing of words is the bit I do.

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