I’m sorry to break the bad news but it’s true. “Alright” is not a word. The correct form is All Right. The funny thing is if you type ALRIGHT into Microsoft Word, the spell check doesn’t flag it. But if you spell it incorrectly “Alrigt” and you right-click for the correct word, you won’t find ALRIGHT as a substitute.
For informal writing, go ahead! Use ALRIGHT. No one is going to correct you. But for the purpose of formal writing and perhaps even your novel, stick with ALL RIGHT. I tried to sway my copy-editor on this issue, but she was unmoved. It was either ALL RIGHT or nothing.
Happy Writing 😀
2 responses to “Grammar: “Alright” is not a word…technically”
You got a prescriptivist. That’s lovely… I fear what a prescriptivist would say about my attack on grammar in my second novel. I refuse to put a comma before ‘but’ if it ruins the cadence of the sentence.
Most of the time readers don’t follow the commas anyway. They read at their own flow.