"It was dusk" is passive.

No, it isn't.  'was' is a linking verb, and does not express
any action.  It cannot be active or passive; the terms simply
don't apply if there's no action.

Hmm.  I'm wrong about the terminology, then.

I just intensely dislike descriptive passages that use "it" to define
nothing at all.  What, exactly, was dusk?  The world?

Heh, listen to me.

[No, Mr. Dickens, that won't do at all!  I'd suggest, "The times were
neither good nor bad.  Wisdom and folly ruled the age.  Incredulity
and belief both marked the epoch."

Please take back your manuscript and return it to me when it is
presentable.  Thank you.]

The Oxford Dictionary of Current English says:

Although widely used, _alright_ is still nonstandard and
is considered incorrect by many people.

Nowhere is it indicated as slang.

It's a misconception by people who see words like almighty and
altogether and think that the same 'rule' should apply to alright.

But it's another one of those words where the misconception is so
prevalent as to give the word itself some legitemacy through sheer
weight of use.  Rather along the lines of ending a sentence with a
preposition: formerly anathema, now everyone does it and it barely
raises an eyebrow, even amongst the grammar police.

I might add that it's rather difficult to tell whether a
speaker is saying "All right" or "Alright". :)

Yes, and that's my main problem with using "alright" even in "slangy"
usage.  Unlike "gonna" instead of "going to" or "Whaddya think"
instead of "What do you think", "alright" and "all right" both sound
identical.  So why not use the grammatically correct one?

  -Sean

-Richard
-Pulling out his Strunck and White just to brush up