Sir, - Far from feeling right uptight about the apparent overuse of the expression "Right!", it seems to me that one should try to set the matter right in thwarting its cement-mixer-like monotonous manipulation of speech. Some word-watchers, fearing it might prove to be a downright blight on the language landscape, would wish it declared a veritable write-off before it leaves the art of dialogue in a state of chassis.
Short of starting a right riot, the anti-clichΘ brigade believe that this retrograde weasel-word "Right!" should be rightly routed and prevented from acquiring a right of way through our utterances, thus righting the balance upset by "Right's" wrong use. Otherwise, they say, bombarded right, left and centre by this lethal word-weapon, we may be left writhing by one of the most meddlesome, monosyllabic clichΘs ever to soil the sensitive soil of oral communication.
However, perhaps one doesn't do "Right!" right in slighting its right to freedom. Who knows that "Right!" might yet be Might, as it were, and be duly ensconced in a right honourable niche in the temple of exclusive exclamatory expressions! Right? - Yours, etc.,
Father Pat Deighan, Beach Park, Laytown, Co Meath.