Another vote for alright bugging me alot. It can’t be a word because it’s two.
That would appear to be because the dictionary you quote is treating “all right” as a way (perhaps they even think, the truly correct way) to spell alright. However, “all right” is not a word at all, it is two words, each with their own well established meaning. When they are combined together they clearly imply that everything (“all” - no doubt not everything in the universe, but everything pertaining to the situation under discussion) is just as it should be (“right”). “Alright”, in common usage, implies no such thing. It merely suggests that the situation is tolerable, that there is no significant cause for complaint. Such a condition may often fall far short of everything being just as it should be. (Indeed, it seems to me that, quite often, “alright” carries the subtext “Actually things are far from ideal, but I recognize that they could be much worse, and that I have no right to complain”.)
You’re all right. <nmh>
But are all ternative spellings all right? Or are only some of them alright?
They don’t. They really, really don’t. And apparently everybody but you understands that to be true in all but specialized cases.
I checked the Chamber’s Dictionary to see if you’re using an unfamiliar Britishism. Meaning 1 can possibly be construed as "just as it should be."Meaning 2 is much closer to the meanings I quoted earlier.
They also give a usage hint for all right vs alright
As I said earlier, alright is used interchangeably with all right in colloquial conversation and maybe even with allright.
To bend over backward on this, we can say that you have all right correct for one single type of usage. You just messing up the logic of the rest of the many uses of the term, perhaps the majority of all uses, without any acknowledgement. And you get this much because I’m doing all the heavy lifting, since you provide no backing cites whatsoever.
When you want to get in the game and admit that all right and alright are merely variant spelling for a large class of meanings that everybody else would be familiar with, and let cites rather than opinions carry the argument, maybe then we can get further. Cites vs. cites can stand the strain of argument. Cites vs opinions are worthless. I’ll take my ball and go home. That ain’t alright.
OP: You should still use “all right” pretty much all the time. Definitely in anything even remotely formal. Certainly whenever you’re in doubt. Even in the example you give.
“All right” started out as a two-word phrase but is now primarily a lexeme unto itself that is roughly equivalent to “okay”, as everyone knows. This happened before “alright” showed up, which is just a misspelling of “all right”.
By now, however, everyone has seen and understands “alright”, and that’s how new words enter the language. We’re just still in that early stage where we don’t know whether it will eventually become standard, die out, or just hover somewhere in between. I suspect the latter, at least for a long time. And just to be clear, this wouldn’t really be a new word, just a new spelling.
It’s pretty clear that currently, “alright” still looks ignorant for almost any purpose other than lending a slangy air to reported speech or chat room dialogue. But because it can’t really be confused for anything else, it’s not flat-out incorrect, and it does get that kind of usage in serious works of literature.
Another version I have seen in literature, and which I prefer, is “arright”. That won’t work for everyone if it doesn’t sound like what you say, but I can see this gaining popularity because it has the same general effect as “alright” but more deliberately, so it looks like you know what you’re doing.
To me at least, the two spellings mean different things: -
“Are you alright?” = “Are you ok?”
“Are you all right?” = “Are each of you correct?”
“Alright” is like “gonna”–see other thread: It codifies a common phonetic realization, but the spelling will perhaps always be substandard. (Spelling doesn’t change much anymore–we’ve printed so much.)
On the other hand, I take **Kiyoshi’s **point. I think you can tease apart the meanings of the two intonation patterns, and if so “alright” may be on its way to becoming a separate lexical item with its own spelling.
Another way to think about “all right” and “alright” is that it may exist due to the open compound becoming more of a closed compound (aided by intonation, aided by semantic change).
This is essentially the same point that njtt made above.
This means that there can be shades of meaning in which alright and all right are not interchangeable. The rest of the time, however, they will be. You will find people using either "Are you alright?"or “Are you all right?” to mean “Are you OK?” And it’s the propriety of that equality that we’re talking about.
Another question might be, is it “OK” or is “ok” acceptable?
Hmm. Listening to John Lee Hooker, “That’s Alright” as I type this. Confused. Certainly not going to call the man wrong.
Also what I said in my OP.
Quite a range of opinion, from “alright is perfectly fine” to “only ignorant fools use it”. Didn’t know there’d be so much controversy. I kind of wish I had made it a poll now.
Personally, I wouldn’t put it on par with incorrect usages like “alot”, as one poster said. To me “alot” is on par with using “should of” instead of “should have” or confusing “it’s” and “its”. But I think my original, incorrect assumption that there are two words, “alright” and “all right” with differing meanings at least has precedence in “altogether/all together” and “already/all ready”. So I ain’t beating myself up over it too much. And I still think “all right” is confusing as to its meaning sometimes, e.g. “are they all right”.
In any case, I now have the straight dope on alright vs. all right now. If I choose to use “alright” in the future, it will be with the full knowledge that it’s colloquial. Or maybe I’ll just stick to using “okay”. 
And you just had to come along.
It’s alright ma, I’m only sighing.
Uh, thought it was about time to revisit the topic? :o
Alright, I didn’t think to do a SD search to see if it was covered before. I posted from my iphone and SD searches are nearly impossible on one.
It’ll be interesting to read through that thread when I have more time.
Heh, no worries; I just remembered that thread nostalgically. It was my first week as a poster here.
This middle-aged English major would not approve. That said, I also dislike “alot”, which is pretty common these days.
Get off my lawn, you darned kids!
Aww, the kids are alright!
(Incidentally, The Kids Are Alright and The Kids Are All Right are two very different movies.)
An ‘Almost a Gentleman’ New Man type officer in one of Evelyn Waugh’s novels set in WWII drives people wild by, with inoffensive commonness, using the cheery colloquialism * ‘Righty-o !’.
I daresay such as he would approve ‘alright’.
- And ‘Okey-doke’.