# Shoveling against the tide, Part 3,497.6 **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 15, 2004, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983 "2004-08-15T19:48:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/21 "2004-08-16T00:27:28Z")
I’m sorry, but I’m with the OP. “Alright” is an abomination. Even typing it in order to shun it pains me. “Want to go shoot pool?” “All right.” Looks perfect. The rest of you is teh freak, dawgs. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/22 "2004-08-16T21:56:35Z")
For once one of these threads that I can actually agree with. Spelling ain’t like grammar; grammar is different from person to person, but spelling is something that it’s easiest to just agree upon. Anyone know where the variant spelling ‘alright’ came from, by the way? I’ve always wondered about that, since I think I might have used it before I first ran into a condemnation of it. ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/23 "2004-08-16T22:10:49Z")
**EddyTeddyFreddy** - May I do the pleasure of introducing you to **pizzabrat**? > **["Dawg"? (very mild, you sadists)](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269790)** > > Why do people spell “dog” “dawg” when they want to portray someone using it as a slang term? Both pronunciations are exactly the same, so there’s no point. Same goes for “enuff”. > **["Hopefully" doesn't mean "I hope"](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268934)** > > It’s just like every other adjective turned adverb by an -ly suffix - it means “in a hopeful way”. If you say “Hopefully, I’ll get this job”, it means that you will get this job, and you’ll be hopeful as you’re getting it. That’s a odd thing to... > **["Jealous" and "envious" are two different words!](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268594)** > > And I’m not going to tell you what the difference is either - just…find it out yourself!!! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/24 "2004-08-16T22:34:06Z")
> [@Rysler](#): > > The rest of you is teh freak, dawgs. Well, I don’t know. I’m pretty pedantic about grammar and spelling details in general, but I really don’t have a problem with it. It’s a contraction; they happen, and this one’s been around for some time. As [Bartleby](http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/023.html) points out, it’s hardly more offensive than “altogether” or “already”, yet these are happily accepted, and have developed independent meanings much as I believe “alright” is doing. It’s not a formulation I’d use in formal writing (more as a question of style than one of spelling\*), but when reporting speech it seems quite natural to me. - I’d never write a line like, “This method was tested, and found to be alright/all right,” for example, but only because either spelling sounds stupidly informal. I’d prefer a word like “acceptable” or some such. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/25 "2004-08-16T22:39:38Z")
HAW HAW, neuroman, :D, thanks for the links!!! That “Dawg” thread is a classic. It should be made a Sticky. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/26 "2004-08-16T22:52:18Z")
> [@neuroman](#): > > **EddyTeddyFreddy** - > > May I do the pleasure of introducing you to **pizzabrat**? > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269790](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269790) > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268934](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268934) > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268594](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268594) > > 😛 If that’s your pleasure, what’s your pain? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/27 "2004-08-16T23:00:22Z")
**EddyTeddyFreddy** : Please enlighten us about hyphenation rules. I know that the following sentence is wrong: “Please pick-up your paychecks at the front desk.” It should be: “Please pick up your paychecks at the front desk.” I believe this is how to correctly use this word as hyphenated: “Pick-up hours are between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m.” Can you provide a succinctly worded grammar rule which I can quote when I try to explain this difference to my bosses? ---
**Author:** ![sangfroid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@sangfroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sangfroid)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/28 "2004-08-16T23:00:35Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Oh, and if anyone is wondering why I take such stuff to heart: I’m a proofreader. My search-and-destroy mission in life is to root out error in the printed word. The ‘net is probably a bad place to employ said mission, IMHO. 😉 May whatever god you may believe in spare you from the horror of leetspeak :eek: , which even the Master agrees gives one a friggin’ headache! BTW, **ETF** , as a point of curiosity, how does a proofreader reconcile British vs. American/Standard English; i.e. parlor: parlour? An English professor of mine once docked me points on an essay for using “British” spelling, and I replied “didn’t they _evolve_ the language that we now use”? Sadly, it didn’t help. He said it was unacceptable. The prig. He stole points from my essay! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/29 "2004-08-16T23:32:58Z")
**Eddy** , I think you’ve lost the battle with “alright”. Fowler was bitching about it in _Modern English Usage_ in the twenties, and the _OED_ shows uses of it from the late 19th century. The boat may have sailed. **Pugluvr** , “pick up” is a verb and an adverb put together. You perform an action - the action is picking. The “up” provides additional information about how this action is performed. You pick the object up. An easy way to tell which is which is that you could put this adverb after the object, and it would still make sense to most people. Therefore “I pick up the pencil” can convert into “I pick the pencil up”, or in your example, “Please pick up your paychecks” could be rendered “Please pick your paychecks up”. The hyphenated form “pick-up” is a noun and can’t be split up without losing its meaning. If you can replace it with “collection” and the phrase still means what you want it to mean, it should be “pick-up”. For that matter, just replace “pick-up” with collection in all cases - far more elegant. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/30 "2004-08-17T00:17:16Z")
Uh, **ETF** …isn’t this a rather hidebound, inflexible…uh…_Republican_ kind of way you’re acting? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/31 "2004-08-17T01:19:00Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Uh, **ETF** …isn’t this a rather hidebound, inflexible…uh…_Republican_ kind of way you’re acting? > > 😃 Now, there you go again, trying to hijack Truth, Justice, and the Meritorious Way entirely to the Right. We leftward liberal types can be just as passionate in the defense of Mom-Puppies-Apple-Pie-Good[sup]tm[/sup]; the difference is, we stop to think about it first. 😉 > [@sangfroid](#): > > BTW, ETF, as a point of curiosity, how does a proofreader reconcile British vs. American/Standard English; i.e. parlor: parlour? Fortunately for me, I don’t have to. I proofread transcripts of pretrial depositions and regulatory hearings, so my focus is on ensuring correct American spellings, interpreting and fixing oddball results of misstrokes by the court reporter, checking spellings of proper names, technical terms, and so forth, adjusting punctuation, and generally walking the tightrope of making intelligible to the reader the verbatim transcriptions of testimony by witnesses whose language skills range from superbly erudite to barely comprehensible. ---
**Author:** ![Primaflora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Primaflora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Primaflora)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/32 "2004-08-17T02:12:45Z")
Unfortunately alright is acceptable. I hate it. Mr P prefers it but I’ve yet to see an editor change it on him. Irregardless is moving closer to acceptable too, sadly. The US/UK/Australian English issue is simple. Depending on where the article or book is to be published and depending on house style, you use the appropriate style manual or dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/33 "2004-08-17T15:22:51Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > **All right** : satisfactory; in good condition; unharmed > **Alright** : ABOMINATION! NOT CORRECT! DEFILER OF THE LANGUAGE! > > _No, it is not all right to use “alright”._ The ancient (© 1979) Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary at my desk lists ‘alright’ as a word (with no ‘disputed’ status) synonymous with ‘all right.’ It cites Gertrude Stein in its usage example. Stein wasn’t the most conventional user of the English language, but the point is, ‘alright’ didn’t sneak into the language yesterday, or even within the past generation. > [@ETF](#): > > One very good reason for preferring “all right” and disdaining “alright” is that, unlike the other pairs I mentioned in the OP, there is no difference in meaning, no distinction to be preserved by using “alright”. It’s a contraction of ‘all right’. Language evolves. You surely wouldn’t eschew “wouldn’t” simply because it means the same as “would not.” ---
**Author:** ![KarlWinslow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@KarlWinslow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlWinslow)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/34 "2004-08-17T15:29:28Z")
You people are fighting a loosing battle. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983/35 "2004-08-18T04:47:23Z")
But it’s all right, now, In fact, it’s a gas. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoveling-against-the-tide-part-3-497-6/259983.md?page=1)