The phrase "acceptable at the time" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to something that was considered appropriate or suitable during a specific period or context.
Example: "The policies implemented were deemed acceptable at the time, given the circumstances we faced."
Alternatives: "suitable for the period" or "appropriate for the era".
It all seemed perfectly acceptable at the time, possibly even rather elegantly understated.
"I have never complained about it because it was acceptable at the time," she said.
"There can be no excuses made in relation to 'what was acceptable at the time' or 'how children were perceived'.
I now note the slippage of my social standards; events seemingly acceptable at the time now appear abhorrent.
Listen to BBC7 radio a lot, and one of the most charming things about it is that before The Navy Lark or whatever, the links-person will warn us that the comedy contains "humour acceptable at the time".
Ms Wass dismissed suggestions that Operation Yewtree - the investigation sparked by revelations about Jimmy Savile - was a "celebrity witch-hunt", or claims by observers that some alleged behaviour by celebrities was deemed acceptable at the time.
The same way that people used to use the word homo or nigger and it was acceptable at that time, the word illegal is going to be looked back on with a different perspective," he said.
And acceptable weight at the time of donation is no guarantee that a donor will keep the weight off.
Achieving acceptable margins at the time of primary lumpectomy surgery may be increasingly important as techniques for intraoperative radiotherapy evolve and ablative approaches to the lumpectomy cavity are explored.
Although some of the environmental impacts of these early measures (e.g., the loss of fluvial habitat) were not the intended consequences of river channelization and dam construction, they were mostly anticipated and were considered as an acceptable consequence at the time.
Its basic tenet is that for something to be funny, script or no script, it has to be experienced as both wrong (a violation that threatens beliefs of how things should be) and not wrong (benign or somehow acceptable) at the same time.
