Linguistic Descriptivism on ABC News

[alixtii]

Only two minutes long, but a lot of fun: this webcast takes a look at "how idioms get their spellings (and meanings) reshaped into new variants, sometimes to the point of meriting dictionary inclusion" (in the words of interviewee Ben Zimmer, writing on languagelog here). The pairs it examines include vocal cord/vocal chord, free rein/free reign, and shoe-in/shoo-in.

It involves cartoons (who are, apparently, ventriloquists).

Comments

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

That was cool and interesting - but, argh, I am a prescriptivist, I hate bowing to the ignorant like this! Next thing you know, "alright" will be considered all right.

[amyheartssiroc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have mixed feelings, too.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

But "alright" serves such a useful purpose, because there's actually a semantic distinction between "alright" and "all right" as used by someone who uses "alright." So it actually serves clarity.

We should totally all be speaking Anglo-Saxon.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Actually, your sentence is a good example of why I like the distinction--because to me, you're claiming that soon it'll be completely ("all") right, when really you're only saying it'll be considered okay ("alright").

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I don't see this distinction. But I don't consider "alright" a word.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

"Alright" can mean partially right ("I did alright on the test" = I didn't fail, not "I got 100%.") "All right" can't, for me--it means all right.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Well, I hold with Merriam-Webster's definition of 1: satisfactory, 2: safe, 3: good or pleasing. In other words, it appears as a phrase which means something greater than what the individual words mean, and when I use it (spoken) to mean "all right" as opposed to "all" "right" I emphasize the "right"; when I mean "all" "right" I emphasize the "all."

(And I'm being totally disingenuous by holding MW up as an authority, since they also list "alright" as "= all right". Its usage dates from about 75 years after "all right". But I learned the phrase "all right, already" as a mnemonic for spelling these two terms, and will doggedly refuse to use "alright" and mark it as wrong when I beta, and when I see it in a story (fanfic or profic) my opinion of that story drops - more a visceral reaction than anything else.)

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

But I've made clear the semantic distinction then at least--"all right"/"alright" makes clear the distinction between "all right" and "all" "right" which previously wasn't made clear either orally or typographically.

But I learned the phrase "all right, already" as a mnemonic for spelling these two terms

I don't follow this. Why couldn't it be "alright, all ready"--that is to say, what about this phrase reminds one that the first word (because you seem to be using it as a single lexeme) has a space in it and the second word does not?