All Right or Alright?

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 9, Issue 80, 7 October 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

All Right or Alright?

We (“ Poking and Tientsin Times”) kave just received the following, not by telegram, from Peking : “ Dear Sir,—ln your last issue ‘ The Man in the Road’ in his sparkling ‘Notes’ uses the word ‘alright;’ and, as a foreigner of many years residence in the East, where English is so common a means of telegraphic communication, I aim interested in knowing if the word be an allowable one. Everyone who has to telegraph home at $2.50 per word will agree with me that it should. “ Some years ago. while travelling from Europe to China, I had a little experience which would rather give it against ‘ The Man in the Road.’ It happened at a busy telegraph office in a, British colony. I wished to cable I had safely arrived so far ; and, on entering the office, was exercising my mind in search of a phrase suitable for my purpose, when I recollected that I had been told by an American scholar that now ‘ all right’ can be written in either one or two words, but that when written in one word one ‘l’ had to be dropped. So, with a view to thrift as well as fitness, I boldly wrote ‘ alright’ down. But what was my surprise on receiving the bill to find that I was charged for two words. I was of course helpless -against the declaration of the suave but smiling official, and said nothing. “ Now What is a poor foreigner to do in such a case ? Wo know that when doctors disagree there is no help for ns, but surely there ought to be some one among your readers to decide between the utilitarian American and the conservative English official. “If ’The Man in the Road’,will be good enough to give ns his authority and make British telegraph officials decide in favour of ‘ alright’ I shall feel that I fliave not spent my $2.50 in vain.—l am, dear sir, yours truly, “ X.” (Considering the commonness of the practice it seems hard that a man should he fined $2.50 for misspelling a word, though if the rule were universal it would he -an excellent way of paying off the national debt at short notice. But “alright” is not right; because while “ right” is “ light” “ all” is not right. Whereas in “all right” not only is “right” right, hut “all” is right, too—and, therefore, “ all right” is all right Ed.)