in which “you all right?” only sometimes means what it sounds like

Published: October 27, 2008, 8:00 pm

I've said I know more British slang than most Americans because of Doctor Who and Harry Potter, and that's true, but sometimes I get tripped up even when I recognize some turn of phrase from one of those fandoms. Right now the one I keep getting stuck on is You all right? It threw me a bit when I first came across it in Order of the Phoenix a couple years ago, although not too much because it was used maybe twice in a flashback scene. To, like, the 1970s. So I was surprised to discover that while the phrase is still in use which is a little surprising by itself; cool is about the only slang word I can think of offhand with real staying power it's apparently not quite the same as that used by James Potter. People tend to say You all right? rather than just All right? for one, which strikes me as odd since such things tend to get shorter over time rather than longer, but for another, it sometimes means what it sounds like and sometimes it

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