right all along
16
5.0
- idiom
- Informal
:
tener razón desde el principio
- You were right all along.
And that now, I guess, has given some in the mainstream media permission to finally admit that you had it right all along.
- And that now, I guess, has given some in the mainstream media permission to finally admit that you had it right all along.
- But you always succeed more and are right more in the big ways than the people who've been right all along and are wrong.
Examples
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Turns out, women were right all along about how to get the most optimal results in their circumstances.
Blog text (4) -
To admit that would be to admit that, perhaps, the Greens had been right all along.
Fiction book (1992) -
Well, I guess you were right all along, huh?
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Look, you were right all along.
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You were probably right all along.
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I guess I was right all along!
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You were right all along, Frank.
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I met someone and what she told me proves that you were right all along.
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But it later turned out that Shell had been right all along about the environmental impact.
Academic text (2001) -
I always believed in your theory, and now I see you were right all along.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to have been correct from the beginning' is directly derivable from 'right' (correct) combined with 'all along' (throughout the whole time); 'all' + 'along' signals duration so the phrase means 'correct the whole time.' This is a straightforward compositional pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will very likely understand the MWE.
Etymology
Right all along is like imagining someone on a road who was on the correct path from the start: they were right and remained so all along the way. So it means they were 'correct from the beginning', even if others doubted them.