Comments on Alright Hamilton!: Weekend Notes

haha

2009-10-24T22:36:12.789-05:00

haha

Okay, that's better.

2009-10-24T02:58:27.815-05:00

Okay, that's better.

And you, Daymonster, are not the kind of person I ...

2009-10-23T23:34:38.603-05:00

And you, Daymonster, are not the kind of person I should be taking grammar advise from. Or be scared of.

Soup, you are so dumb. Right after you wrote abou...

2009-10-23T17:23:56.901-05:00

Soup, you are so dumb.

Right after you wrote about not ending sentences with a preposition and starting sentences with a conjunction, the very next sentence committed both those errors.

I can't believe you didn't notice that. tsk, tsk.

thats deep mike.

2009-10-23T15:45:30.911-05:00

thats deep mike.

I had actually discovered that horrible truth abou...

2009-10-23T14:41:45.820-05:00

I had actually discovered that horrible truth about "alright" some time ago, but didn't mention it. I mean, if our title was wrong, what does that say about our entire blog, ya know?

But I think it's alright. I was once kinda snobby about grammar, but I heard some woman on the radio saying explaining that as long as people understand you, it's really NBD if it's technically in the dictionary. It's more better when we talk from the heart instead of consulting a dictionary. Everyone has a sorta unique way of talking, and thats' kind of cool.

Good addendum. In defense of "alright"...

2009-10-23T12:25:21.140-05:00

Good addendum.

In defense of "alright":

The English language doesn't take itself too seriously, which makes it awesome. It's a hodgepodge (this word being a great example) of languages. If we don't have a word for school before elementary school we'll say, "Hey, Germans have this word 'kindergarten'. Let's just use that." And the English language doesn't care. Kindergarten it is. We steal and invent knew words with little hesitation.

English grammar also has some flexibility. There are rules, but even the most acclaimed writers ignore them from time to time. You shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition or start a sentence with a conjunction. But it’s alright to do in the society we live in.

English has wandered greatly from its Latin roots in regard to adherence to grammatical rules. English is not as strict. It's more democratic. So, “alright” might not be a word, but it should and will be a word. As the "American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style" explains:

“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.”