meaning - Is it "alright" or "allright"? - English Language & Usage ...

In practice I find both spellings being used. From a logical point of view, "allright" (as in: "all's right — everything is fine") seems correct. However, I recall hearing that "alright" is the preferable variant.
Is there consensus over which to use? Do they possibly even mean something different?
10 Answers
10
Wiktionary marks alright as an "alternative spelling" of all right, and allright as a "common misspelling" thereof. Merriam-Webster only has entries for alright and all right, and this usage discussion:
The one-word spelling alright appeared some 75 years after all right itself had reappeared from a 400-year-long absence. Since the early 20th century some critics have insisted alright is wrong, but it has its defenders and its users. It is less frequent than all right but remains in common use especially in journalistic and business publications. It is quite common in fictional dialogue, and is used occasionally in other writing <the first two years of medical school were alright — Gertrude Stein>.
Lastly, the fact that all right loses one L when written as one word is not peculiar in the least — just think of already, almost, although, albeit, almighty, altogether, and any number of other words formed this way.
One can use this analysis to judge whether such words as "altogether", supposedly derived from "all together", shed light on the matter. Advocates of "alright" claim that it can be used interchangeably with "all right"; otherwise why ask which one to use? But a little thought will demonstrate that "altogether" is generally not a substitute for "all together". For example, "When they were all together, the kids were happy enough, but they weren't altogether happy." Clear in meaning, certainly true in some cases, but also proof that "all together" and "altogether" aren't the same thing.
The graph above shows that the usage of "all right" peaked in the 1940's. It would be instructive to see what was happening to the usage of "OK" during the period covered by the graph, and whether it appeared to be displacing "all right". Remember that "OK" was an acronym derived from the jokingly-spelled "Oll Korrect." Looks a lot like "all right" to me.
This is entirely how the position was explained to me at school (in Britain) in the 1950s. We were told to use either alright or all right and that there was "no such word" as allright. Ever since I have always used alright.
The second spelling requires a space: it is either “alright” or “all right”.
The New Oxford American Dictionary says:
Usage: The merging of all and right to
form the one-word spelling alright is
first recorded toward the end of the
19th century (unlike other similar
merged spellings such as altogether
and already, which date from much
earlier). There is no logical reason
for insisting that all right be two
words when other single-word forms
such as altogether have long been
accepted. Nevertheless, although found
widely, alright remains nonstandard.
I'm my humble and uninformed opinion they are both correct, but are a little different.
I would use "alright" in a sentence such as: "Alright, I finished fixing the engine, now to test it.", or "alright, alright already, I'll fix the brakes."
while I would say "The car's running all right, but it really needs a wash."
So, I would use "all right" when it really means all of it's right, while "alright" is used in more informal or derivative uses where it doesn't really mean all is right.
In my view, "all right", as a phrase, means "OK", "nominal", or "acceptable", as in "The fix was all right, but clearly not intended as a long-term solution." The claim that "all right" somehow implies "correct in every way" is belied by the fact that while it juxtaposes the two words, it doesn't form an integral phrase. This is emphatically conveyed by the expression "just all right", which would be quite a stretch to interpret as "merely correct in every way." For these and other reasons, I view "alright" as a lazy variant that has muscled its way into English, but I don't see how it adds anything useful or esthetic.