"Reply back" / "get ahold" / "alright" and Sofrito

Language, and the way we speak it, pronounce it and write it, is the way we interact with the world and the way we give information about our character, background, education and lifestyle. So we should be careful.
Yesterday someone e-mailed me saying "I replied back." Reply means "to make answer in words or writing." "Back" with "reply" is a needless word. The same as "fall down," "listen up," or "return back." Take note.

A few months ago I wrote a short article where I used the expression "get hold of" which was "corrected" by my editor to "get a hold of." As I am tired of discussing language issues, I said nothing. But yesterday I thought of this when I ordered from Amazon the novel Sofrito, by Phillippe Diederich which has been highly recomended. I am eager to read it. The information given is: "In this entertaining debut novel, Frank Delgado tries to save his failing restaurant by returning to Cuba, his dead father’s homeland, to get ahold of a top-secret chicken recipe." (My emphasis.) Now I have three possibilities: to get hold of, to get a hold of and to get ahold of. We may quibble with the first two versions but must discard the third. I will be daring and go further: only the first one is correct.
I still read "alright" for all right even though everyone who is anyone has condemned it since the beginning of time. So, please write all right (sounds like a pun.)