Author Information
Alot is Alright
INTRODUCTION
Preface:
It is with all due respect for my peers and with an overriding sense of urgency regarding their ultimate safety that I submit the following rough sketch of my brief, 'Alot is Alright.' I shall in due course of time elaborate upon the points therein and extend the argument more carefully by means of an exhaustive synthesis of inductive and deductive logic.
I. Proposition:
Every optimist would agree that "alot is alright" in our world, but if that proposition were submitted to editors for publication, few if any editors would approve of the spelling of both subject and predicate as submitted. 'Alot' would definitely be deemed improperly spelled. And where "standard" or "elevated" English is the mode, 'alright' would be shunned by pernickety editors. Thus we might find our respectfully submitted proposition changed to "a lot is all right." Unfortunately for the progress of reason, such unthoughtful assaults on common sense are routine. Alot is at stake here, as we shall see if only we are patient with our inquest into the abortion of alot. For the wrongful banishment of 'alot' can only be understood as such by an extended discussion of 'alright.'
The standard response of an editor to any objection raised by an optimist submitting the proposition thus spelled might be a reference to the publication's style manual or some more public reference that such manuals mimic, perhaps with a confused explanation of the rule along with a statement about "common usage." But alot is wrong with that modus operandi. It is the explanation of a dictator who believes his tyranny is justified by the tolerance of his victims for their suffering rather than justified by their preferences or actual practices--just as the dictatorship of the proletariat was not a dictatorship by the proletariat alone, as bad as that might be, but a dictatorship over the proletariat and everyone else who did not fit the description.
Therefore, as an optimistic pessimist who believes very little can be done to win the covert dictatorship of the literary power elite over to the side of our overt common usage--a popular usage which prefers ample freedom in both the symbolic, abstract action of language and in actual, concrete action--I optimistically propose that, generally speaking, alot is alright.
II. History of the Question
Alot including 'alot' has been summarily dismissed by authority under the pretext that it is obviously alwrong; and to that hardly anyone demurred over time because they were more concerned with what is precisely alright, and there has been an extensive history of controversy over that. Take, for instance, the colloquialism 'alright', which, although largely forsaken by elitist grammarians, still appears in dictionaries and is also permitted by spell-checking computer programs. In fact, the 1989 Oxford Unabridged English Dictionary gives 'alright' as "a frequent spelling of 'all right' without further comment, while Webster's 1989 Third New International declares 'alright' to be "in reputable use, although 'all right' is more common." Yet its victory over 'alot' is unfair and, as we shall see, proves the propriety of 'alot.'
The advent of printing served to fix the spellings of living language to precise forms; many skilled printers of English were foreigners, hence many of their spellings were misspellings; technology can thus condemn us to repeat mistakes; technical innovation can actually stifle innovation. When the spelling and compounding of words depended on tribal scribes who did their best to record the spoken usage of their respective clans corresponding to the evolution of their mental powers, many different spellings for the same signifiers naturally arose because of the inadequacy of the given alphabet for accurately representing living speech. Living languages evolve with the lives of their speakers. Spice is essential not only to the good life but to all life. People naturally take a liking to variation in all matters. Still they must communicate, thus the sounds of a language remain similar as well as the spelling of its words.
A. A Brief History of Alright
Our beloved word 'alright' as well as its uncompounded version "all right" has its origin in Old and Middle English words such as 'ealriht, alriht, alrihtes', and, uncompounded, in 'eall right, al riht, all rihht, al rizt.' But its modern sense seems to have appeared in the fourteenth century; for instance, Chaucer wrote: "Criseyde was this lady name, al right."(c.1385).
According to Mirriam-Webster's DICTIONARY OF USAGE (1989), there is a long pause from then until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, where it was used as a pronoun in such phrases as "All right as my leg," say, after examining money to ascertain if it is legitimate, one says "It is all right as my leg."
Use of the two words as a fixed phrase proceeded in the nineteenth century; for instance, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote "That was all right my friend."
The authors of USAGE say they do not know what happened to "all right" in between Chaucer and Shelley, but they do know "alright" had appeared in print before the end of the nineteenth century: "I think I shall pass alright." (1893) And it appeared in a Merriam-Webster dictionary in 1934, but before that Websters was urged to include it in their dictionary. One man complained the telegraph companies were insisting on "all right" so they could charge for two words.
The controversy in America over whether "alright" was alright arose in the early twentieth century. And there was a reaction against its use in Great Britain, where, in 1924, the Society for Pure English published a symposium on "alright." The great H.W. Fowler denounced it there and in his MODERN ENGLISH USAGE (1926); most lesser authorities, although tolerant of 'alright' in common practice, have down to this day automatically fell in line like dominoes, euphemistically referring to it as a "colloquialism." Others have privately called it "an idiom for idiots" even though it may not be so idiomatic as one might think: 'alright' is not "peculiar"; it does not signify something altogether different than 'all right', for "safe" and "correct" are at least more closely related in meaning than a the phrases of a good old idiom such 'kick the bucket', meaning 'to die.' But more on that later.
The Mirriam-Webster editors examined (ed.1989) about forty British and American commentators on what was alright, and found only a couple dissenting. But the editor notes: "It should be noted, however, that the usual way of disapproving 'alright' is to append a pejorative label (as 'illiterate' or 'colloquial') to it or to deny it exists; no very cogent reasons are presented for its being considered wrong."
I have found very little professorial support for 'alright' in the handbooks. Various professional observers have noted that the one-word form is increasingly seen in business and fiction writing, hence might some day become standard; and that there might be a good case for shortening "all right" to "alright", and so on. But fastidious pedants tend to dismiss 'alright' as a "common misspelling" or a "vulgar colloquialism." Webster's USAGE (1989) goes so far to state: "Is 'alright" all right? The answer is a qualified yes, with these cautions. First, 'all right' is much more common in print than 'alright.' Second, many people, including the authors of just about every writer's handbook, think 'alright' is all wrong. Third, 'alright' is more likely to be found in comic strips...trade journals, newspapers and magazines...than in more literary sources."
I always turn to my favorite grammarian H.L. Mencken in cases like this. Although he writes like a high-brow, he knows what good taste boils down to. He can cuss the aristocrats up one side and down the other without vulgar people knowing it; hence he says what needs to be said without fomenting a rebellion. incidentally, he said Mr. Webster for all his professed humility was actually a dictator.
Mencken, in THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, takes up the great controversy that raged in the 'London Observer' over 'alright.' In January 1938, a reader wrote:
"How such a stupidity came to be so widely distributed I cannot imagine, for it is by no means restricted, as one of your contributors suggests, to illiterate servant girls. I would excuse them, but I find that it creeps into the documents of many so-called well educated persons. Here are some lines on the subject, which I clipped from a paper several years ago, and which may serve to dispel the confusion:
"Already, Almighty, Also,
Albeit, Almost and Although,
Altogether, Always, and Alone,
But Alright is wrong, be it known."
As if on cue, an anonymous Cambridge man--it is no wonder he chose anonymity given the violence of controversies in those days--came to the defense of 'alright' as being entirely proper in learned circles. But I shall take up his thesis later. Suffice it for the history of this question to give Mencken's verdict on 'alright,' which is, in short, that it is a "vulgar" term and a "barbaric invention', but it is still alright in his view. He says, in regards to our propensity to conjure up such a mess:
"One pictures the common materials of English, dumped into a pot, exotic flavorings added, and the bubblings assiduously and expectantly skimmed. What is old and respected is already in decay the moment it comes in contact with what is new and vivid...
"All of this boldness of conceit, of course, makes for vulgarity. Unrestrained by any critical sense--and the critical sense of the pedagogues counts for little, for they cry wolf too often--it flowers in such barbaric inventions as 'tasty, alright...tony, goof...' But vulgarity after all, means no more than yielding to natural impulses in the face of conventional inhibitions, and that yielding to natural impulses is at the heart of all healthy language-making....The future of what was once the Anglo-Saxon tongue lies on this side of the water. Standard English now has the brakes on, but American continues to leap in the dark, and the prodigality of its movement is all the indication that is needed of its intrinsic health, its capacity to meet the ever-changing needs of a restless and emotional people, inordinately mongrel, and disdainful of tradition. Language, says A.H. Sayce, 'is no artificial product, contained in books and dictionaries and governed by the strict rules of impersonal grammarians. It is the living expression of the mind and spirit of a people....The first lesson to be learned is that there is no intrinsic right or wrong in the use of language....'"
I would love to quote more extensively from Mencken on the subject of language because, each time I write out his words, my memory is refreshed with what I already knew, that alot is alright, and especially so on the progressive side of the Atlantic. Although only a great author can effectively quote another author, I recommend that all authors quote Mencken as often as possible.
B. A Briefer History of Alot
'Alot' is different story. For instance, many spell-checkers allow 'alright' but always reject 'alot', which is not found at all in dictionaries. As I have previously mentioned, the compound of "a" and "lot" has been rudely treated; it has suffered terribly in relative silence. Agaim, 'alot' was almost strangled in its crib; not alot has been written in its defense. Even in dictionaries of colloquialisms, 'alot' seldom has its own place either in the dictionary's main list nor in the index, except as a cross-reference to 'lots or 'lot'--in the sense of "much." And when we arrive at the singular 'lot', we find that, for it to mean "much", it must be preceded by an 'a', as if we were to say, "We have 'a much' of phony baloney here" instead of 'alot' of it. The meaning of a 'lot', an indefinite 'lot', or THE particular, definite 'lot' is NOT synonymous with 'lots' or 'alot', but I shall allow the obfuscation to stand for awhile.
Mirriam-Webster's USAGE, just before honoring 'alright' at length, does not have alot to say about 'alot.'
"'A lot' is apparently often written as one word--perhaps by people in a hurry--for we have an even dozen handbooks reminding their readers to write it as two words, and presumably there are others. Two words is the accepted norm....Our evidence for the one-word spelling 'alot' comes mostly from memos, drafts, private letters. It occasionally sees the light of day in newspapers where proofreading has not been careful enough."
Lexicographers supposedly rely on "common" usage as dictated by professors who write handbooks; that is, the authors of Webster's defer to those handbook authors, who, in turn, look to higher, more critical authorities and their precious handbooks and scholarly writings: that procedure is not uncommon, but it certainly has little to do with common usage and rather more to do with entrenched authority and its alleged superior reasoning ability which is seldom disputed. And, despite the fact that Webster's authors have pointed out that the use of 'alright' had not been sufficiently endowed with logical justification by its fervent critics, they do not even mention the absence of the logical grounds for the callous dismissal of 'alot.'
C. History Approves of 'a lot'
As for the approved form 'a lot', Webster's USAGE affirms its use is established as meaning "many," "much", "a great deal," and also notes it is usually referred to as 'colloquial' in the sense of something bad.
What? Bad?
Yes, colloquial speech is "bad" in comparison to formal speech because the colloquial is ordinary speech. The most current politically correct authorities inform us that 'colloquial' should not have pejorative connotations; it simply means "familiar speech." Well, then, it must be alright to use colloquialisms with our familiars.
Roy H. Copperhead, A DICTIONARY OF USAGE AND STYLE (1964), states that 'a lot' is:
"suitable to informal, conversational contexts. The writer who is practical enough to wonder whether these expressions (lots, a lot) are appropriate in a given place is not likely to go astray. Very little writing now, furthermore, maintains a tone to which they would be unsuitable....If there were something scathing to say about 'a lot' and 'lots', Fowler surely would have said it, but he merely referred to them in passing as colloquial and concerned himself mainly with whether they take singular or plural verbs, a question whose answer now seems self-evident."
Good heavens! The great Fowler sent 'alright' to hell but kept "all right", 'a lot' and 'lots''; of course, 'alot' is just 'a lot' misspelled. All lesser lights follow in tow. And we perceive their dimness in self-contradictions, non sequiturs, and unsupported claims.
Eric Partridge, USAGE AND ABUSAGE, A Guide to Good English (1994), has a few words on the subject with allusions to the ignoble history of 'colloquialism.'
"lot. 'a lot' for a large number or quantity; 'the lot' for the whole number or quantity; are too common in our speech to be condemned as incorrect, but their use where any refinement or elevation of language is required is impossible for they are not Standard English."
Partridge does not seem to be aware of the implications of the distinction he has drawn between 'much', and a particular quantity, or 'lot', and why 'alot' would be a much more convenient term for 'much.' We shall come to terms with that later.
D. Alright is alright but Alot must be a lot.
Now then, we see from our history of the question, of whether alot is alright or not, that 'alright' was allowed over the centuries but is still not generally approved of a standard, while 'alot', although as popular as its cousin, was altogether dismissed as a misspelling by the authorities. The disposition of both compounded terms seems to have depended on the great influence of a single authority, Fowler. In any event, both 'all right' and 'a lot', are deemed to be colloquial or familiar expressions, and therefore may be used in ordinary speech and writing. But those who still know what elevated language is will not resort to those vulgarities while employing it. Of course, my use of "vulgarity" is not intended here to be derogatory, but merely refers to what is common or popular, such as a vulgar translation of the HOLY BIBLE.
III. The Great Occasion for Discussion
Many people who are accustomed to the shackles of authority and who therefore prefer to leave the thinking to others, believe there is little occasion to discuss whether "alot is alright' or not, for everything seems alright to them as long as they have alot of other things to consume. Yet the history of mankind is the advance of freedom in small things as well as in great, and that progress requires most of all the extended discussion of the real merits of existing authority in its every particular. But, alas, many people have by their accustomed obedience to authority been rendered incapable of enjoying extended, coherent arguments; they have become inured to sticking their heads into the sand of the so-called objective "facts" of sensational "news", from which blind perspective certain irrational choices are made according to knee-jerk reactions to "issues" such as abortion, school prayer, and gun control. Unfortunately, history seems to have come to an end, and alot is considered all wrong simply because some prevailing hack happens to say so pursuant to the latest poll. But nobody seems to really know why 'alot' is not alright.
So fearful are so many people of the independent exercise of their minds that they dismiss such questions as "Is alot alright?" as being mere trifles for idle pedants to squabble over. But as we should know, there is no real dispute amongst those who rule today except over which rulers shall have the most power to preside according to the same arbitrary rules. The over-arching purpose of the overpowering rule is said to be inevitable: the accelerated global consumption of everything in sight.
Those who submit to the patent absurdities of the authorities do not understand that the struggle for freedom begins with the mind ("manah"=thinking) over apparent trifles. When false authority and pendantry rule that precious mental province, man as man ("man"=he who thinks) is deadened: he becomes a zombie-like, omnivorous walking worm whose conversation consists of hackneyed phrases of a mechanical magpie or, if a critic, one whose criticism is that of a vicious harping harpy trained to say "no" to every "yes", and vice versa merely in order to foul every nest alighted upon.
Ironically, man resents his own greatest gift: the gift of intelligence. He is becoming increasingly anti-intellectual in his denigration of those true liberal arts whose process is the liberation of the human soul from the confines of material existence; instead, he takes pride in himself as a technological ephemeron without an historical sense; and he believes he is more intelligent than free intellectuals because he has managed to make a machine and obey it without regard to the invalidity or validity of the thinking of those at the controls. And, if he can concentrate long enough to carefully examine the apparatus, he might discover only mechanics at the controls; for, over the last generation, leadership has withered for want of cultivation. In other words, morons are at the gigantic wheel and few passengers are even aware of the fact that the craft is spinning out of control. (Amleth, however, acting the Fool, is sharpening his sticks in the fire).
For instance, more and more people today are incapable of independently forming well-reasoned opinions; therefore, they rely on what other people think: that is often expressed in opinion polls. That is to say, more people follow opinion polls than those who actually make opinions. Of course, the polls are devised to control opinions by asking limited sets of questions, just as a limited set of candidates are permitted to run for office. A minority of a minority of a minority actually rules, not the voter, despite the pretensions of reform, which is conformity to the prevailing to the double rut cut out by the Emperor for all wagons to go in the same directions, with a few tweakings of the engine here an there. Oh, if it were not for the amnesia, there would be no needs to repeat these platitudes!
In any event, whatever is most popular makes the most money hence it is considered superior. To keep score, it is fashionable today to provide people with a preference-rating scale whereby they rate certain things from least to most agreeable. This makes consumers feel like they are participating in an intellectual endeavor and that they have real choices, as if their lives had more value than the quantity of potential consumption, Little notice is taken that the rating system itself does not correlate with any underlying moral or ethical value; that is to say, there is no cogent philosophy behind the rating activity except to keep the raters involved in the activity without protesting the system itself. This reminds me of the pig farmer who found a solution to the problem of piglets biting each others tails and ears off in their pens: he put broken bowling balls from the local bowling alley into the pens; the pigs bowled without the slightest notice that their balls were broken, and the problem was solved.
In many cases, an examination of the rating scale designed to keep up the distracting servile activity reveals not only the absence of objective values but also a subjective incoherence. This serves the purpose of precluding any unity of consciousness that might become a threat to the argument that alot is not alright. I recently complained that an Internet site provided a four-part scale for readers to rate writers (its 'content providers'), one part of which is as follows:
ENJOYMENT/INFORMATIVE
1. Didn't Enjoy
2. Not Applicable
3. Learnt a Lot
4. Sensational
5. Standing Ovation
Yes, there it is, my cue, "Learnt a Lot!"
"Information" is identified with "enjoyment", and sensation and popularity are elevated over learning. And the spelling "a lot" provides us with the usual clue of the tyranny exercised over the unwitting mind.
Therefore, it is obvious in view of our discussion thus far that we have a great and crucial occasion for discussing our proposition "alot is alright", and at great length, for it appertains to the very freedom of our race and therefore the prospects for our future and our ultimate survival. Moreover, the grammar of 'alot' and 'alright' as opposed to 'a lot' and 'all right' is a microcosm that brings our minds to bear on the general problem of tyranny, namely its increasingly irrational character as our civilization decays.
IV. Issues
The number of particular issues subsumed by my general proposition that alot is alright are virtually infinite. Although information in virtual space approaches infinity even at the speed of light, my present argument is subject to my personal constraints in time and space; I have, in turn, decided to raise only the following issues, and to leave the rest for further discussion.
A. First of all, since reasonable people want reason to prevail as a light guiding the will, we should determine if the prevailing authority in the instant case is indeed rational in the best sense of the word.
B. Secondly, since the struggle for mind over matter proceeds within, that is, with the human will, it behooves us to ask, Can an irrational or misguided authority maintain its wrongful grip over our language and, ultimately, the rest of our behavior?
C. Thirdly, assuming our civilization is the taming of the beast in man by means of the gift of reasoning power, does present authority present a clear and present danger to the civilization the human race has fought for over the last few thousand years?
D. Fourthly, if during our discussion we awaken to tyranny, should the tyrants over all categories be overthrown by violent or peaceful means?
V. Argument
A. The prevailing authority is not rational in its banning of 'alot' and its continuing disparagement of 'already.'
1. Definition of Rational
By 'rational' I mean what is reasonable in the general sense instead of in the limited sense that dominates the current rationalizations of the economic cult which worships only quantities as represented by the doctrine, 'Only money counts.' The economic cult's ideal model is the Economic Man whose objective as producer is to maximize profits, and, as consumer, to maximize the use of or satisfaction with those products. Maximization is to be accomplish through the lowering of relative costs and prices, hence what is cheaper is better; in fact, the very act of putting something on the market at any price, rather than keeping it for one's own enjoyment, cheapens it. Of course it has exchange value, but when quantity is the idol, the world will be filled with trash and junk until civilization chokes on its own waste. Be that as it may, under the liberal-economic, mathematical definition of 'rational', man is liberated to think mostly of consumption.
The liberal-economic definition of 'rational' has alot to do with our issue because it is really irrational, or unreasonable, and it has already turned otherwise intelligent people into virtual nitwits who think they are being reasonable because they have their heads buried in the so-called objective sand of sensational "facts", "news", advertisements and such, to the extent they are no longer able to reasonably consider our issue at all.
The opposing economics of reason is not based on the utilitarian, quantitative pig philosophy, but rather on the qualitative economics of genuine human happiness. I speak of the economics of happiness flowing from human initiative and human will, versus the economy of the cult of profit and consumption whose prophets of misery worship transcendental, indifferent, economic "forces" and who are unaware of the fact that they are not alright in condemning alot of good things and ideas because of their preference for, say, large lots of real estate and enormous lots of commodities.
2. The Authorities Are Irrational
As is often the case with authority in general, the grammatical authority is irrational as well; particularly in our case of 'alot is alright,' for their judgement is based on arbitrary subtle distinctions and differences.
Since distinctions are at play, let's examine them to see whether or not the authorities are reasonable, or whether they are discriminating according to the self-serving prejudices of their elevated professional
status.
We find no distinction made between "alot" and "a lot', although one is most apparent, because the word has simply been dismissed by authorities as a misspelling; they do, however. allow the truly idiomatic phrase, "a lot", as a colloquialism. But let's examine 'alright' and 'all right' first of all since there has been much discussion allowed in their case.
a. The Stresses of Alright
Those who favor a distinction between 'alright' and 'all right' sometimes cite the different meanings signified by the various emphases or stresses placed on spoken words, just as the same word can be differently accented to produce different meanings.
In fact, one of fundamental complaints against fixed spellings in print is that they do not allow for the flexibility of living speech, which can represent different styles of thinking, the production of new ideas, or the modification of old ones, that arise in natural conversation; say, as a dialectical synthesis of thesis and antithesis. Indeed, since the bulk of communication is now textual and limited to mechanical forms, the art of conversation and its most important, spontaneous factor has almost been lost. The great liberating conversation recorded in texts has largely been abandoned due to the emulation of the mechanical technological forms and the attendant diminution of free speech.
Now then, I mentioned heretofore the anonymous learned man from Cambridge who, in the January 23, 1938 edition of the London 'Observer' defended 'alright' as having a different meaning than 'all right.' He states:
"The key to the problem of whether two words have fused in one is the accent with which they are spoken. When two words fuse they are pronounced with a different accent than the original pair. Let us take a sentence like 'They are all right' and ask ourselves whether the accent of the last two words can be so varied that the sentence means two quite different things. We find that this can actually take place. If we pronounce the last two words so that they are equal in stress we find the sentence means 'All of them are right'; if we pronounce them so that 'right' is more strongly accented than 'all' it means 'The are not in danger; they are safe,' or, more generally, 'You needn't worry about them.' It is easy to see that this second meaning of 'all right' represents a fusion of the original elements.'
However, the Cambridge man did not grant 'alright' anything more than colloquial status.
Accent or stress might be a good method to determine different meanings provided people agree on its usage. The problem with the Cambridge man's differentiation based on accent is that I might accent 'right' in the sentence 'They are all RIGHT', meaning not that they are safe, but they all answered a question correctly. That is, even the same emphasis can have different meanings: in this case, I stressed the importance of being right.
Furthermore, Webster's USAGE points out that arguments based on stress are "difficult to evaluate because stress patterns are only observable in speech, whereas 'alright' is purely a spelling variant.' That of course appertains to the previously mentioned inadequacy of text to represent speech; nevertheless, readers who are familiar with speech, especially those who enjoy reading slowly out loud or speaking silently, have no problem providing the stresses in context; the number of those careful readers are dwindling now that scanning and rapid reading have become the mode for stuffing the head with "information" to distract it from the crisis of existence.
b. The Different Meanings of Alright
But let us pass from different stress to different meanings. Theodore M. Bernstein in DOS, DON'TS & MAYBES OF ENGLISH USAGE (1977) addresses those defenders of 'alright' who justify it by giving compound words such as 'already' and 'altogether' as precedents for combining 'all' and 'right.' He insists however, that there are entirely different meanings to 'already' and 'all ready', and to 'altogether' and 'all together.' On the other hand he says there is only one rare case where 'alright' and 'all right' have a different meaning: in the statement, "His answers to the five questions are all right." He concludes: "On other occasions the two versions would have the same sense. And that raises the the question, who needs 'alright? Forget it."
What? Why not favor the majority, and go with 'alright'?
I believe whosoever wants 'alright' should have it in order to conveniently make the subtle distinction; and it is really more obvious than subtle, for there is a definite relation between being safe and being right in our culture, as every child who is graded on his or her conduct knows only too well. Because of that distinction, some authorities treat 'all right' as an "idiomatic phrase": a phrase that has a different meaning than the words comprising it--for instance, "kicking the bucket" as meaning "to die."
If Mr. Bernstein were right, why do we find the phrase 'all right' repeated several times according to even more subtle distinctions in the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF CURRENT IDIOMATIC ENGLISH (1975)? It would be more appropriate to say that 'alright' is the idiom, not 'all right': therefore let 'all right' signify what the phrase ordinarily means! Instead, we find a long list by Oxford, which I condense:
all right (certainly), as in "He's a bright child all right, you must be very proud of ."
all right (acknowledgement), as in, "All right, all right, so I was wrong!"
all right (safe, well), as in "She look all right when I saw her in the hospital two days ago."
all right (in good order or working properly), as in "I can't hear anything wrong with that record: it sounds all right to me."
all right (acceptable), as in "Oh, how dare she! I clothe my own children. Sarah's dresses are perfectly all right."
all right (reasonable), as in, "The cathedral doors were open so they thought it would be all right to go in."
And more! All in all, we find a fundamental distinction of "correct" and "safe", and a psychological relation between the twain. It would be quite reasonable to divide the duties betwixt 'all right' and 'alright', or, if we are to be rid of the division, get rid of the cumbersome 'all right' and let 'alright' stand for all. But the most reasonable disposition would be to use 'all right' for correctness and the like, and 'alright' for safety, content, happy and the like. Instead, the handbook professors continue to hold out for 'all right' while the lexicographers throw their hands in the air and say 'alright' is all right without further comment on the absurd arguments of those learned doctors responsible for the higher education of our civilization.
c. The Authorities are Wrong about Alright
Therefore, the present usage of 'all right' and the continued verbal abuse of 'alright' is irrational and arbitrary; the arguments of the professors, even against the usage of 'alright' in literature, appear to be irrational justifications of their own industry all to the cost of the common-sense practice.
d. There is a Clear Distinction Between Alot and a lot
The difference between 'alot' and ' a lot' is as clear as that between their common meanings: between "much" and "a distinct portion or alloted share of something, or one of a set of objects such as a die cast or a straw drawn in a game of chance."
Yet the grammarians have violently extirpated 'alot' from our language, omitting it from dictonaries, thus covering up their arbitrary deed with a wall of silence. And it is no wonder, for there is no logical justification; any attempt to provide one would undoubtedly be alot of nonsense. not "a lot" or "a much" nonsense.
My objection might seem to be alot of pettifoggery over an irrelevance. Nonetheless, all is not what it seems. The instant case is evidence of the broad lot of authority in all domains, for it to establish and preserve a self-serving nobility carrying forged credentials printed on private presses. If we carefully examine the basis of those credentials by paring away the presuppositions and prejudices they are printed on, we are all too often left empty-handed, with empty-headed theology; that is, if we are not too distracted by patent antinomies and absurdities.
In any event, alot has been illuminated by the light of our study of 'alright', revealing why 'alot' has been left in the dark. And if we look into other darkened recesses, we shall discover what authority thinks its general lot is: God's lot, which is infinite in extent; and, for God's noble servants, much more than merely alot, for none of God's acres are little by any accounting.
B. Irrational Authority has a Stranglehold on Alot of Unwitting People (Xombies)
The struggle of mind over matter obviously proceeds from the dominant principle within, with the human will. Alot is at stake in the case of 'alot', because that case is merely an example of the stranglehold by which irrational authority maintains its stronghold. Yet authority, in order to defend its abusive posture, blames its conduct on its victims, asserting that, if they were truly suffering, it would be a easy matter for people to throw up their arms in self defense and break the choke hold, thereby slipping out of authority's grasp; but instead, or so it is asserted, the subordinated choose to accept the benevolent discipline of their masters and all to their own good.
But that is alot of deceptive propaganda. Yes, it is true, humans who are fully alive, who are in full possession of their native will and reason, will eventually evade or slip out of every artificial hold designed to defeat free discourse and intercourse, or die in the process; for what life is worth living if it is not worth dying for? Life itself would overcome every impedance to its advance; and life provides man with reason as a tool to be employed against necrotic, mortifying obstructions.
Every attempt to defeat free speech has eventually failed miserably and at great cost to human life. We have always managed to overcome narrow-minded censors, for instance, by coining new words and by using old ones in different senses. If one obscenity is punished or expunged, another rises up in its place. And every noble lord of language may accomplish the same thing in different terms by resort to euphemisms; and, of course, the lord will not be censored for profanity, at least not by the unwitting. Unfortunately in that respect, a mass of morons are being cultivated to serve the lords: I refer to the army of sycophants who believe they can hide their hate by couching it in politically correct phrases.
Thus it might appear to that the language still lives. But that is the point of view of the dead alive (not the living dead)-- if you will permit a neologism: the perspective of xombies. Hardly anyone alive today would accept the banishment of 'alot' anywhere unless they were literally dead on their feet, unless they had become xombies. For the end of life is freedom from death; and in the human realm that requires freedom of speech; not lawless speech, but speech free of the arbitrary, irrational restraints of false authority.
C. Clear and Present Danger
Our examination of the authoritative grammatical distinctions and/or identities between 'alot' and 'a lot' and between 'alright' and 'all right' reveal that both the differences drawn and those denied by the authorities are arbitrary and irrational. The arguments or the lack of them given in support of authority are not merely habitual justifications of the status quo but are inculcated to maintain the power of the authority structure that porpagates the status quo. And it further appears that such irrational authority has had little difficulty keeping its wrongful grip over such significant aspects of our language and, ultimately, over the rest of our behavior.
Although it might appear that the vitality of language can spontaneously evade all efforts of the power elite via their grammarians to control it from the top down, the evidence in the case of 'alot', proves otherwise.
Since all sustained efforts by authority to rid the world of free speech and consequently the free circulation of ideas that might oppose the elite operations have eventually failed miserably with enormous waste of human life, the present tendency of obedience to irrational injunctions enjoining writers not to use, for example, the legitimate and properly spelled word 'alot', gives us good cause to believe that civilization itself, to the extent it is based on the progress of human reason, is in clear and present
danger.
Of course, someone might object, "We can say and do a lot on the Internet and nobody can stop us." To that I respond, "Then why not spell the word properly, as 'alot'? And for all you have said on the Internet, what have you done? Is it not true that the boob tube has been replaced by a media having an even worse effect in that its interactiveness creates the llusion that you have done something when nothing at all has really been accomplished?"
Yes, we hear the Internet propaganda on a daily basis. We hear the mantra chanted time and time again that the Internet is an empowering medium of free expression. Knowledge is power, says the maxim over and over, and now that we have free access to knowledge, freedom reigns, and the age old dream of the democratization of the globe is in the works.
Ah, but the wise have learned that: 1) the Internet is a collective commercial enterprise; 2) the most valuable information still has to be paid for; 3) the Internet is not a library with a code of ethics or bill of rights promulgated to protect intellectual freedom and the right to read: censorship is in fact the rule and not the exception on the Internet; 4) information is useless unless it is organized and acted upon in concert; 5) the global "democratization" constantly referred to is simply the mathematical rationalization of unrestrained greed via the withering and destruction of the institutional social modes of action designed to organize that greed for the highest good of society: that is to say, it aims at the destruction of civilization itself, utilizing fatalistic terms such as "inevitable" in its superstitious adoration of the "free market"; 6) other than the organization of mass production and consumption around the biggest and therefore the most popular Internet sites, a great deal of virtually anarchic, peripheral activity occurs under the pretext of "freedom": such unorganized activity creates the illusion of freedom, to which the dissatisfied are addicted to as a virtual narcotic serving to randomly dissipate energy that could otherwise be directed at the central authority,
Alot more could be said about the infernal information machine now in the hands of the diabolical forces of darkness and tribalism lurking in the boardrooms of corporations constantly seeking even more immunity from social responsibility as their hired thugs prey on and dismantle
civilization.
The banishment of 'alot' and the acceptance of that censorship by the populace (even on the so-called "anarchy" sites set up by the CIA and other agencies to dissipate protest, rendering it futile, and to monitor real anarchists devoted to random physical violence), is no laughing matter. It is a crucial matter of attitude; it is a serious problem, not merely a picayune spelling issue.
The callous disposition of 'alot' is indicative of an attitude that imposes economic, quantitative considerations as the only value, the global value; the imposition is irrational and anti-intellectual.
Furthermore, the efforts to censor profanity today actually distract from what is really considered obscene by the prevailing authority and by those who follow in placid obedience along the highway to hell.
The preferred Scene today is disgusting to say the least: obfuscation prevails; nothing is clear. The world is being turned into a junk yard populated by omnivorous maggots feeding on their own waste products. Everything must be devoured. Everything must be digitalized into zero or one, a world of as mandatory yes or no to consume either this or that, with no fasting in between. No particular image is sacred to the fenomenalist freaks whose mana is illusion. No object is really worthwhile to the objectivist monsters deluded by their commodity fetish. Of course, the free subject is anathema to both objectivist and phenomenalist.
In opposition to the current Scene we have the Obscene according to today's perverse standard. We have clarity, lucidity, sustained reasonable discourse, the truth of general agreement, unity in the concrete universal, and so on.
And a few of us still cling to 'alot' for very good reason, because the danger of succumbing to the grammarians even in one irrational detail is presently quite clear.
D. Alot May Be Recovered by Peaceful Means
Now that the tyranny over our language is becoming increasingly obvious, our remedy is to rebel against false authority. We must take our language back and employ it according to its best use, that we may obtain its highest ends in a peaceful and genuinely prosperous society. We must recover our language first of all, then build a viable alternative to the insane, ruthless competition for tokens of violence, money now exchanged for monuments of trash and junk commemorating colossal stupidity.
The reasonable use of language shall always tend to subvert authority; that is precisely why such a use is resented, censored and prohibited not only by the authorities themselves but by all those who love and fear them. The only effective resistance to that stupefying force is a reasonable one: in that course we must persist in order to prevail.
But where and when shall we begin to think? Anyplace and anytime is alright for alot of thinking instead of consuming alot of junk and bunk. We may proceed even with seemingly small things like the spelling of 'alot.' Therefore insist on its proper spelling, and use it alot. And when submitting your work to narrow-mind editors, be sure to enclose this brief in explanation of your use of 'alot.'
VI. Conclusion
It definitely follows from the above that alot is alright in more ways than one.
