Perhaps I can get it out of my head by inserting it into others’.
I don’t know for how long they’ve been in the lexicon, but the words “already” and “always” have been around quite some time. I’m pretty sure they are contracted versions of “all ready” and “all ways”—though I could very well be wrong on that.
If I’m right, then why has there been such resistance to similar constructions? I’m thinking specifically of “alright” in place of “all right”. When I was in high school using that word was the linguistic equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard; and it had that effect on me, I must admit. But when I noticed the other words that had already [heh] gone that way, I wondered why there is such resistance.
Well, whatever the reason for it, the resistance seems to be evaporating: I recently finished reading a book—not self–published, I’m fairly certain—which used “alright” throughout. While I’m confessing, I’ll admit it grated at first; but then after I recollected my earlier observations, I became comfortable with it. Dunno that I’ll be comfortable enough to adopt it myself, but it could happen.
This Linguistic Question Has Been Bugging Me Lately
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New linguistic contructions
I tend to avoid new constructions because I think language is a tool for communication. Why, then, use new nonstandard tools that don't have a commonly established usage? You risk confusing, rather than communicating.
As for "alright": In high school, I often used it out of ignorance. Later, as I wrote more, I made a strong effort to avoid it. These days, though, the usage is common enough that I am comfortable using it in nonformal writing. And when writing colloquially, I prefer it over the longer "all right", unless I intend a pedantic effect.
(I'm also one of the last people I know to finally give up fully capitalizing RADAR and LASER, to accept that they had evolved from acronyms to words. I'm told that I'm also somewhat old-fashioned in still using commas.)
I no longer capitalize
I no longer capitalize LASER....most of the time. However,I do put it inside air quotes whenever I say it.
Probably the timeframe
Just guessing, but maybe "already" and "always" were condensed when English was mostly a spoken vernacular, or at least before spelling became standardized. It was common as late as Shakespeare's time to spell words a variety of different ways (hell, he spelled his own name six different ways). And when English was mostly a spoken peasant patois, literate people like priests who had to transcribe some bit of spoken English into a written record would just play it by ear and guess at an appropriate spelling. That's why there are frequently so many different spellings of assorted family branches of the same surname: parish priests writing down names in baptismal records were as "creative" as the functionaries at Ellis Island.
It was only from the time of the Augustan Age lexicographers on that the language became really conservative about enforcing spelling rules. And since the 18th century or so, the schoolmarms have been hell on the whole "prescriptive vs. descriptive" thing, and really think "the rules" were all received on Mount Sinai. So it's probably just a lot harder to change spelling rules now than it was when "already" and "always" took their present form.
BTW, that's true of a lot of the hard and fast rules that the schoolmarms try to enforce now. Ain't was at one time standard as a contraction for "am not," and I've noticed at least two quadruple negatives in Chaucer. The grammarians of the English Renaissance tried to impose a pseudo-Latinate grammar on the language in totally ahistorical and disruptive ways. When the same "substandard" or "dialectical" usage can be found almost universally, from Yorkshire to Cornwall to Kentucky, it stands to reason it probably predates the so-called "rules."
If anyone's responsible for "ruining the language," it's not hillbillies, gangstas or downeast swamp Yankees. It's advertising people, journalists and bureaucrats. "Impact" is not a substitute for "affect," and there's no such damned thing as a "preowned car."
In case you haven't guessed, I think the people who like to make rules could benefit in most cases from a bicycle chain across the eyes.
P.S. You might check the OED for etymologies of "already" and "always."
Non-words and George Carlin
George Carlin was a fanatic about language - realizing its sneaky power, no doubt - and drew much comedy from it. He especially used the non-words you listed. The biggest example he used in my mind was the evolution of "Shell Shock" through some iterations I don't remember to "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder".
PoS
Murphy's Bye-Laws
All Right Now
I think this falls under "100 years from now, none of this will matter." AP style is "all right," but until about two months ago AP style was "Web site," not website. And then there was teen-ager, which didn't lose the hyphen in AP's eyes until a couple of years into the 21st century.
Linguistic fingernails on chalkboard? I always thought that was the purview of the split infinitive, or the dangling participle, but I've found over the years that it's alright to occasionally bend these rules we're so obsessed with.
ending sentences with a preposition?
LOL
My daughter will be so happy.
“Scuba” is an older example of an acronym morphing into a word ... and that’s something I hadn’t even thought of in the evolution of English. Commas are another touchy issue with me: the serial comma remains sorely neglected (even well after the book that made the sometimes hilarious results well known in its title), whilst other odd uses—that strike my ear as overuse—are becoming commonplace.
Kevin, I did look them up online, along with another that occurred to me—after I posted this, of course. I appreciate your thoughts, and do suspect that you’re correct. My thoughts hadn’t led me that deeply.
Hear, hear! There are numerous examples of these things that drive me batty, but for the sake of my blood pressure I shan’t start listing them here.
I learned at a fairly young age that in Latin, from whence a fair bit of English came, a split infinitive simply isn’t possible, since verbs are single words. And since there are many times when a phrase is more precise, or simply sounds better with an adverb in there, I haven’t minded that one bit. Dangling participles are another matter, though, as they can range from funny to tragic. Those I do mind.
Speaking of unusual contractions [well, okay, I used one up there somewhere], my daughter will be so happy to learn that her favorite nonstandard word is a featured hot word today: and on her birthday, no less!
More words
If “ain’t” replaces “am not,” then it shouldn’t be used in the plural, should it? — such as “we ain’t,” “they ain’t,” or even “it ain’t” in the singular.
My constructions are somewhat different:
1) I often use “noone” for “no one” (and then have to change it to correct usage); and
2) I’m positively fanatical about the word “until” — for some reason, I hate it, and invariably shorten it to “till.” But... while “till” is rarely written in modern usage, http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/podcasts/grammar_grater/archive/2008/11/13/ states it’s been around a long time.
Rule number one:
Forget everything your highschool english teacher taught you. Rule two: The english language is fluid, never stagnant, treat it as such, your readers will understand the intended meaning.
The first rule was taught to me by my first english professor in college, I owe that old man a lot. The second is just an extrapolation of the first. And I think I am forgetting, oh yeah, after that old professor told us rule one he told us this: You can use 'and' at the beginning of a sentence.