Re: Hopefully, someone can settle this family argument!
HVS
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree
> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the
> subject of this post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says
> Strunk & White condemn it.
>
> ???
"Sentence adverbs" -- words like "hopefully", "frankly", and
"seriously" -- have been used to qualify the whole of a sentence
since at least the 17th century. The usage has, however, increased
greatly in the past 30 or 40 years.
Regardless of the historical precedents, though, it's futile to argue
the point with people like your cousin: you'll never win an argument
on the "correctness" of the usage with someone who's convinced it's a
modern, barbaric solecism.
So your husband's right and your cousin and S&W are, in my view,
displaying historical illiteracy. (But I'll put money on you never
being able to change your coussin's mind on the issue.)
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<mar...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
>using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
>post, for example!
>
>My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
>& White condemn it.
>
>???
The use of "hopefully" as a sentence modifier has been discussed
many times. The FAQ for this newgroup says:
http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxhopefu.html
[various things]
AHD3 says: "It might have been expected that the flurry
of objections to hopefully would have subsided once the
usage became well established. Instead, increased currency
of the usage appears only to have made the critics more
adamant. In the 1969 Usage Panel survey the usage was
acceptable to 44 percent of the Panel; in the most recent
survey [1992] it was acceptable to only 27 percent.
[...] Yet the Panel has not shown any signs of becoming
generally more conservative: in the very same survey
panelists were disposed to accept once-vilified usages such
as the employment of contact and host as verbs." AHD3
quotes William Safire as saying: "The word 'hopefully' has
become the litmus test to determine whether one is a
language snob or a language slob."
Discussions about "hopefully" and "thankfully" go round
and round for ever without reaching a conclusion. We advise
you to refrain.
See also Michael Quinion's thoughts at:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hop2.htm
....
In its favour, hopefully conforms to a type of construction
that is far from new, is a useful condensation of an idea
that would otherwise require a wordy circumlocution, and is
widely used. It is hard to provide much in the way of a list
of objections save that it has become a shibboleth of
correctness among conservative grammarians and stylists,
which requires today’s writer, even forty years after the
great witch hunt began, to be a little circumspect in
bringing it into action. As always with any sort of writing,
you need to consider your audience. For myself, as you have
noticed, I use it when it seems appropriate, untroubled by
any potential strictures. That’s because I have a stack of
modern style guides ranged at my back, chorusing that it is
standard English and that it is both acceptable and
accepted.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Craoi...@gmail.com
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> & White condemn it.
This is not exactly a newsgroup for prescriptive grammar, but anyway:
I have been told it is probably a calque from the German adverb
"hoffentlich". As a non-native speaker, I am in no position to condemn
it, but I see why there are people who don't approve of this usage.
After all, it is not quite in line with the other, more established
meanings of the adjective "hopeful" and the adverb "hopefully" - it is
being used in a sense that would be more accurately covered by
"desirably".
Personally, I would use "hopefully" when *speaking* English, but
definitely not when writing anything above the level of formality of a
private letter.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> & White condemn it.
>
> ???
>
"Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad, since the twelve riflemen
had bet their last bullets on his poker game the evening before the
execution."
The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who
has hope, thanks to his poker skills).
COMPARE:
"Hopefully it will not rain on our parade."
Grammatically this is wrong; it should be, "I hope it will not rain on
our parade, or, as Babs Streisand put it, "Please don't rain on my parade."
However, I am not a prescriptive grammarian. More than a century ago,
Mr. Emerson praised the strength of the double negative and few would
quarrel with the idiomatic rejoinder, "How do you like them apples?" For
purists, "hopefully" can be construed as an ellipsis: "Hopefully [I am
of the opinion that] it will not rain on my parade." Hopefully, this
sentence will aggravate prescriptive grammarians.
Donna Richoux
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> & White condemn it.
>
White (who wrote all but the first part of "The Elements of Style") did
come out against "hopefully" as a sentence adverb; I'm looking at page
48 the 1979 paperback; that was the decade in which the word suddenly
appeared as a overworked fad.
You can find what he said, and a general article on why he was on the
losing side, here, so I will not quote it:
http://grammar.about.com/b/2007/12/05/hopefully-indeed-sentence-adverbs.
htm
Hopefully Indeed: Sentence Adverbs
Wednesday December 5, 2007
I don't know to what extent "The Elements of Style" has been revised
since White died in 1985 (ol' Strunk was long gone, 1946). White's
general advice on good writing is timeless, but particular lost causes
are bound to look fussy and dated. No one is going to succeed in having
all of their personal preferences carried out by succeeding generations,
not even the grand and glorious E.B. White himself.
I think your family members should each do as they think best, and not
worry about whether they agree.
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux
Jim Kalb
HVS> On 21 Jul 2008, Martha G. Smith wrote
>> Two members of my family both teach college English and
>> disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence
HVS> "Sentence adverbs" -- words like "hopefully", "frankly",
HVS> and "seriously" -- have been used to qualify the whole of
HVS> a sentence since at least the 17th century. The usage has,
HVS> however, increased greatly in the past 30 or 40 years.
HVS> So your husband's right and your cousin and S&W are, in my
HVS> view, displaying historical illiteracy.
I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have sometimes
been used in the past determines whether something is good usage
*now*. Doesn't the present state of a language create its own rules
to some extent? If the people who care about language and use it
well don't like a construction, there's probably something wrong
with it. Or so it seems to me.
On a much less theoretical point, it seems to me that "hopefully"
is a bit different from "frankly" and "seriously." The latter
suggest a break and intensification in the discussion. So they're
useful markers. "Hopefully" suggests continued slush. So it annoys
people who don't like slush.
jk
--
Jim Kalb
http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000
R H Draney
>
>On 21 Jul 2008, Martha G. Smith wrote
>
>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree
>> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the
>> subject of this post, for example!
>>
>> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says
>> Strunk & White condemn it.
Strunk died in 1946, White in 1985...you and your husband are still here...you
win...QED....
>"Sentence adverbs" -- words like "hopefully", "frankly", and
>"seriously" -- have been used to qualify the whole of a sentence
>since at least the 17th century. The usage has, however, increased
>greatly in the past 30 or 40 years.
>
>Regardless of the historical precedents, though, it's futile to argue
>the point with people like your cousin: you'll never win an argument
>on the "correctness" of the usage with someone who's convinced it's a
>modern, barbaric solecism.
>
>So your husband's right and your cousin and S&W are, in my view,
>displaying historical illiteracy. (But I'll put money on you never
>being able to change your coussin's mind on the issue.)
We just had a set-to on eBay about "off of"...the other fellow first claimed it
was a "recent phenomenon", and when confronted with illustrations tracing it to
the 16th century, claimed the references were obsolete and therefore
irrelevant....
You can't win with those people....r
--
Evelyn Wood just looks at the pictures.
HVS
> HVS filted:
> We just had a set-to on eBay about "off of"...the other fellow
> first claimed it was a "recent phenomenon", and when confronted
> with illustrations tracing it to the 16th century, claimed the
> references were obsolete and therefore irrelevant....
>
> You can't win with those people....r
I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that
something was a moot point -- as in "debatable", not "trivial".
Someone took great offence, patronisingly informing me that although
he wasn't sure what I *thought* the word meant, I was clearly
mistaken about its meaning.
When I had him take a look at a dictionary and establish that my
usage was still an entirely standard and current meaning, I was
informed that I shouldn't expect him to know that.
Mike Lyle
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> & White condemn it.
>
What everybody else said is right, but so is what I'm going to say. (1)
Anybody who thinks "hopefully" is more succinct than "I hope", "we
hope", "they hoped", etc, can't count. (2) Anybody who doesn't see that
"hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied. (3)
Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding
hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of
"Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?" or "No problem!" as a response
to "Thank you."
Have a nice day, now.
--
Mike.
HVS
> Martha G. Smith wrote:
>> Two members of my family both teach college English and
>> disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence --
>> in the subject of this post, for example!
>>
>> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says
>> Strunk & White condemn it.
>>
>> ???
>
> What everybody else said is right, but so is what I'm going to
> say. (1) Anybody who thinks "hopefully" is more succinct than "I
> hope", "we hope", "they hoped", etc, can't count.
That glosses over the cases where the alternative forms strike an
inappropriate tone.
"I hope the meeting will go ahead as planned" can be too personal;
"We hope..." sounds frightfully royal, doncha' know; and "It is to
be hoped..." can come across as pompous as hell.
> (2) Anybody
> who doesn't see that "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is
> ugly is to be pitied. (3) Anybody who gets worked up about the
> matter needs a more rewarding hobby, such as fighting tooth and
> nail against the moronic recent use of "Can I get..?" instead of
> "May I have..?" or "No problem!" as a response to "Thank you."
>
> Have a nice day, now.
No problem!
angelgl...@yahoo.com
Odd. I always thought "moot" was the past tense of "moo."
Ekkehard Dengler
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> & White condemn it.
I hope you find this helpful:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hopefully
Regards,
Ekkehard
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
I've just returned from a PC World store (in Northern Ireland)
where the checkout man said something I'd never heard before:
"Enjoy the rest of your day". I was so startled I replied "I
will".
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> wrote:
>On 21 Jul 2008, Mike Lyle wrote
>
>> Martha G. Smith wrote:
>>> Two members of my family both teach college English and
>>> disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence --
>>> in the subject of this post, for example!
>>>
>>> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says
>>> Strunk & White condemn it.
>>>
>>> ???
>>
>> What everybody else said is right, but so is what I'm going to
>> say. (1) Anybody who thinks "hopefully" is more succinct than "I
>> hope", "we hope", "they hoped", etc, can't count.
>
>That glosses over the cases where the alternative forms strike an
>inappropriate tone.
>
>"I hope the meeting will go ahead as planned" can be too personal;
>"We hope..." sounds frightfully royal, doncha' know; and "It is to
>be hoped..." can come across as pompous as hell.
>
And "Let's hope..." might be too informal.
Peter T. Daniels
> Martha G. Smith wrote:
> > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> > post, for example!
>
> > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> > & White condemn it.
>
> > ???
>
> "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad, since the twelve riflemen
> had bet their last bullets on his poker game the evening before the
> execution."
>
> The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who
> has hope, thanks to his poker skills).
>
> COMPARE:
>
> "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade."
>
> Grammatically this is wrong; it should be, "I hope it will not rain on
> our parade, or, as Babs Streisand put it, "Please don't rain on my parade."
>
> However, I am not a prescriptive grammarian.
When you write "The latter is the correct use" and "Grammatically this
is wrong," you most certainly are.
How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn any other
sentence adverbs?
Curiously, they never do.
> More than a century ago,
> Mr. Emerson praised the strength of the double negative and few would
> quarrel with the idiomatic rejoinder, "How do you like them apples?" For
> purists, "hopefully" can be construed as an ellipsis: "Hopefully [I am
> of the opinion that] it will not rain on my parade." Hopefully, this
> sentence will aggravate prescriptive grammarians.
It'll intensify them? I certainly hope not.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Martha G. Smith wrote:
> > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> > post, for example!
>
> > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> > & White condemn it.
>
> > ???
>
> What everybody else said is right, but so is what I'm going to say. (1)
> Anybody who thinks "hopefully" is more succinct than "I hope", "we
> hope", "they hoped", etc, can't count.
Who has suggested that?
> (2) Anybody who doesn't see that
> "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied.
Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that
Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is living in
the wrong age. Please return to the era of, at least, the Counter-
Reformation.
> (3)
> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding
> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of
> "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?" or "No problem!" as a response
> to "Thank you."
Do you prefer "cheers" or "ta"?
Peter T. Daniels
> On Jul 21, 4:19 pm, Martha G. Smith <mar...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> > post, for example!
>
> > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> > & White condemn it.
>
> This is not exactly a newsgroup for prescriptive grammar,
mind the crossposts
HVS
And some of these -- "It is to be hoped..." and "Let us hope..." --
when used in informal writing, come across to me as awkward
circumlocutions used solely to avoid writing "hopefully".
To me, it's like reading a sentence that's been contorted to avoid
splitting an infinitive; the cure's worse than the disease.
But then again, I've never had any problem with the usage and --
pace Mike -- I don't find it remotely ugly or objectionable.
Thomas
ptd> How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn
ptd> any other sentence adverbs?
ptd> Curiously, they never do.
An excellent question.
Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising proportion of
recognized experts on usage, it seems that it's a question about
the peculiarities of "hopefully" rather than the peculiarities of
the condemners.
--
Free Inquiries | Let's Talk!
http://inquiries.blogdns.com:8081
Frank ess
I think I know what the "Hopefully ... " people are trying to say, and
when I want to express that, I say, "I'm hopeful that ... "
But in this instance, I'm not.
--
Frank ess
R H Draney
>
>>>>>> "ptd" == Peter T Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> writes:
> ptd> How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn
> ptd> any other sentence adverbs?
>
> ptd> Curiously, they never do.
>
>An excellent question.
>
>Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising proportion of
>recognized experts on usage, it seems that it's a question about
>the peculiarities of "hopefully" rather than the peculiarities of
>the condemners.
If only we could divert their attention to "basically"....r
HVS
>>>>>> "ptd" == Peter T Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> writes:
> ptd> How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn
> ptd> any other sentence adverbs?
>
> ptd> Curiously, they never do.
>
> An excellent question.
>
> Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising proportion of
> recognized experts on usage,
Do you have any evidence at all for that? It's certainly
counterintuitive to me.
The current usage works I've seen would suggest precisely the
opposite: that those who condemn "hopefully" are a small and
decreasing proportion of recognised (as opposed to self-proclaimed)
experts.
> it seems that it's a question about
> the peculiarities of "hopefully" rather than the peculiarities of
> the condemners.
>
--
K. Edgcombe
Mike Lyle <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding
>hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of
>"Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?"
Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family argument.
What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those language changes?
FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the other day.
Katy
Thomas
>> proportion of recognized experts on usage,
HVS> Do you have any evidence at all for that? It's certainly
HVS> counterintuitive to me.
Somebody in this thread cited figures to the effect that as
"hopefully" has become more common members of usage panels have
turned ever more against it.
Heidi Graw
>"Ekkehard Dengler" <ED...@t-online.de> wrote in message
>news:g628ho$o3f$02$1...@news.t-online.com...
Hopefully, they'll click on that link.
Let us hope they will click on that link.
Take care,
Heidi
Take care of what?
Oh, I dunno...anything!
Hopefully, it'll be something good and worthwhile.
<chuckle>
John Dean
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> & White condemn it.
>
Your cousin is quite right. Strunk and White *do* condemn it. They say it is
"not merely wrong, it is silly." You don't say whether your cousin agrees
with S & W. Remember, Strunk has been dead a long time and White is the guy
who wrote stories about pigs and talking spiders.
Your husband is quite right. There's nothing wrong with it. As Bob
Burchfield says in his "New Fowler's Modern English Usage - " ... In the
20th century there has been a swift and immoderate increase in the currency
of [such] adverbs [which] include actually, basically, frankly, hopefully,
regretfully, strictly, and thankfully. Suddenly, round about the end of the
1960s, and with unprecedented venom, a dunce's cap was placed on the head of
anyone who used just one of them - hopefully - as a sentence adverb.... the
present widespread use of sentence adverbs is no more than an acceleration
of a much older process. The OED entry for seriously (sense 1) has an
example of 1644: ... 'Except here and there an officer (and seriously I saw
not above three or four that looked like a gentleman).' [...] The
proposition, then, can be amended as follows: since at least the seventeenth
century, certain adverbs ending in -ly have acquired the ability to qualify
a predication or assertion as a whole. In the last third of the twentieth
century, this little-used and scarcely observed mechanism of language has
broken loose.
Since at least the 17th century, certain adverbs in -ly have acquired the
ability to qualify a predication or assertion as a whole. Such adverbs are
elliptical uses of somewhat longer phrases. ... Conservative speakers,
taken unawares by the sudden expansion of an unrecognised type of
construction, have exploded with resentment that is unlikely to fade away
before at least the end of the 20th century."
Your husband is quite wrong. It is an obscenity, a wen, a pustule on the
face of our fair language.
Truth is, it seems to be one of those uses that is on its way to being
accepted. This may take another hundred years or so, but it will probably
happen. I suspect there will come a generation of grammarians who will point
out that, used in this way, the "sentence modifying adverbs" are not really
being used as adverbs and are not really modifying anything. They are
shorthand versions of longer phrases.
So, for instance, in your subject line, "hopefully" modifies nothing that
follows it. It stands for "I hope that" or even "it is to be hoped that". As
is usually pointed out, this is a borrowing from the German 'hoffentlich'.
Similarly - "Seriously, I hope you're happy with the range of answers here
and that they help you to make your mind up." doesn't use 'seriously to
modify the following sentence not any word or phrase in it. You could delete
it and the sentence would mean the same. All you would lose is the idea that
I am emphasising the genuineness of my wish that you resolve the matter.
--
John Dean
Oxford
HVS
>>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes:
> >> Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising
> >> proportion of recognized experts on usage,
>
> HVS> Do you have any evidence at all for that? It's certainly
> HVS> counterintuitive to me.
>
> Somebody in this thread cited figures to the effect that as
> "hopefully" has become more common members of usage panels have
> turned ever more against it.
Ah; fair enough.
I suspect most of that, though, is advice to "avoid it so you don't
upset those who get upset", rather than "avoid it because it's
incorrect", though. (Like avoiding split infinitives, or not
starting sentences with "and" -- that category of usage advice.)
Derek Turner
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence
If it means 'it is to hoped' rather than 'in a hopeful manner' then I
would condemn it outright. But that's a losing if not already lost battle.
Skitt
> Martha G. Smith wrote:
>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree
>> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject
>> of this post, for example!
>>
>> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
>> & White condemn it.
>>
>> ???
>>
> "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad, since the twelve riflemen
> had bet their last bullets on his poker game the evening before the
> execution."
>
> The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who
> has hope, thanks to his poker skills).
Yeah, but to put a comma after the "Hopefully" is wrong in this case.
Because there was no "former", I also assumed that you meant "The above"
instead of "The latter".
>
> COMPARE:
>
> "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade."
This is the version where a comma is required.
> Grammatically this is wrong; it should be, "I hope it will not rain on
> our parade, or, as Babs Streisand put it, "Please don't rain on my
> parade."
> However, I am not a prescriptive grammarian. More than a century ago,
> Mr. Emerson praised the strength of the double negative and few would
> quarrel with the idiomatic rejoinder, "How do you like them apples?"
> For purists, "hopefully" can be construed as an ellipsis: "Hopefully
> [I am of the opinion that] it will not rain on my parade." Hopefully, this
> sentence will aggravate prescriptive grammarians.
Personally, I am not afraid to use "hopefully" to mean "it is hoped".
From M-W Online:
usage
In the 1960s the second sense of hopefully, which dates to the early 18th
century and had been in fairly widespread use since at least the 1930s,
underwent a surge in popularity. A surge of criticism followed in reaction,
but the criticism took no account of the grammar of adverbs. Hopefully in
its second sense is a member of a class of adverbs known as disjuncts.
Disjuncts serve as a means by which the author or speaker can comment
directly to the reader or hearer usually on the content of the sentence to
which they are attached. Many other adverbs (as interestingly, frankly,
clearly, luckily, unfortunately) are similarly used; most are so ordinary as
to excite no comment or interest whatsoever. The second sense of hopefully
is entirely standard.
As for Strunk and White -- yes, they condemned the usage, writing:
===================
Hopefully. This once-useful adverb meaning "with hope" has been distorted
and is now widely used to mean "I hope" or "it is to be hoped." Such use is
not merely wrong, it is silly. To say "Hopefully I'll leave on the noon
plane" is to talk nonsense. Do you mean you'll leave on the noon plane in a
hopeful frame of mind? Or do you mean you hope you'll leave on the noon
plane? Whichever you mean, you haven't said it clearly. Although the word in
its new, free-floating capacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many,
it offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see words dulled or
eroded, particularly when the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or
nonsense.
===================
About that "clearly" -- without the comma it has the "leave in a hopeful
frame of mind" meaning. To have the second-listed meaning, a comma is
required.
Strunk and White are both dead now.
--
Skitt (AmE)
No NESsie, but oh, so close ...
Peter T. Daniels
On Jul 21, 12:57 pm, HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> wrote:
> On 21 Jul 2008, Thomas wrote
Nothing that I saw. Apparently this "Thomas" person chose to reply
directly to me, but to cut my newsgroup out of the distribution of his
message.
Is "Thomas" an aue-poster of less than normal intellect?
> >>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes:
> > >> Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising
> > >> proportion of recognized experts on usage,
>
> > HVS> Do you have any evidence at all for that? It's certainly
> > HVS> counterintuitive to me.
>
> > Somebody in this thread cited figures to the effect that as
> > "hopefully" has become more common members of usage panels have
> > turned ever more against it.
>
> Ah; fair enough.
>
> I suspect most of that, though, is advice to "avoid it so you don't
> upset those who get upset", rather than "avoid it because it's
> incorrect", though. (Like avoiding split infinitives, or not
> starting sentences with "and" -- that category of usage advice.)
I note that my question was not answered.
R H Draney
Maybe we could start using "inshallah" in its place....r
Peter T. Daniels
And they let a guy who writes like that assume the mantle of one of
the great stylists of the 20th century, Henry W. Fowler? Ugh.
> Your husband is quite wrong. It is an obscenity, a wen, a pustule on the
> face of our fair language.
How do you reconcile that outburst with the following paragraph?
> Truth is, it seems to be one of those uses that is on its way to being
> accepted. This may take another hundred years or so, but it will probably
> happen. I suspect there will come a generation of grammarians who will point
> out that, used in this way, the "sentence modifying adverbs" are not really
> being used as adverbs and are not really modifying anything. They are
> shorthand versions of longer phrases.
> So, for instance, in your subject line, "hopefully" modifies nothing that
> follows it. It stands for "I hope that" or even "it is to be hoped that". As
> is usually pointed out, this is a borrowing from the German 'hoffentlich'.
What evidence is there that it is a "borrowing," and not a perennial
feature of English style?
Peter T. Daniels
On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature of English
style and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of English?
James Silverton
> On Jul 21, 2:00 pm, Derek Turner <frde...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:19:00 -0600, Martha G. Smith wrote:
> >> Two members of my family both teach college English and
> >> disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence
>>
>> If it means 'it is to hoped' rather than 'in a hopeful
>> manner' then I would condemn it outright. But that's a losing
>> if not already lost battle.
>On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature
> of Englishstyle and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of English?
"Hopefully" is a perennial topic but the usage is not totally recent.
The OED has:
Hopefully, adv.
1. In a hopeful manner; with a feeling of hope; with ground for hope,
promisingly.
a1639 WOTTON Life Dk. Buckh. in Reliq. (1672) 237 He left all his female
kindred..either matched with peers of the realm actually, or hopefully
with earls' sons and heirs. 1846 H. ROGERS Ess. (1860) I. 171 The limits
within which the human understanding can hopefully speculate. Mod. He
set to work hopefully.
2. It is hoped (that); let us hope. (Cf. G. hoffentlich it is to be
hoped.) orig. U.S. (Avoided by many writers.)
1932 N.Y. Times Book Rev. 24 Jan. 11/4 He would create an expert
commission..to consist of ex-Presidents and a selected list of
ex-Governors, hopefully not including Pa and Ma Ferguson..............
Note the caution!
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Adam Funk
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> & White condemn it.
Here's my opinion: fortunately for you, your husband is right.
There are two arguments against this kind of "hopefully".
1. "Hopeful" properly means "full of hope" in the sense of optimistic,
expectant, etc., and applies to people. (I've only heard this
argument occasionally.)
Counter-argument: the sense of "promising", "causing hope" (applied
to things, usually) is *slightly older* than the other one.
2. Adverbs modify verbs (as well as adjectives and other adverbs) but
not whole sentences, so "Hopefully, X will happen" would have to
mean "X will happen in a hopeful manner". It doesn't, so it's
wrong. (This is the more common argument.)
Counter-argument: if you throw out this kind of "hopefully", you
also have to throw out a lot of other useful adverbs in the same
construction; I've never heard anyone complain about these;
- Fortunately|Unfortunately|Luckily, Fred showed up.
- Bizarrely|Sadly, ...
- Eventually, Fred will show up.
- Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
- Clearly|Seriously, there are a lot of these adverbs.
... and so on.
Although _The Elements of Style_ is mostly very sensible, I think
Strunk & White were stepping off the dock at this point.
Surprisingly, Fowler doesn't seem to mention this; nor does Gowers'
revision of _Modern English Usage_, as far as I can tell. (I'd like
to know the details if I'm wrong.)
--
Unix is a user-friendly operating system. It's just very choosy about
its friends.
Jim Kalb
jd> Since at least the 17th century, certain adverbs in -ly
jd> have acquired the ability to qualify a predication or
jd> assertion as a whole. Such adverbs are elliptical uses of
jd> somewhat longer phrases. ... Conservative speakers, taken
jd> unawares by the sudden expansion of an unrecognised type of
jd> construction, have exploded with resentment that is
jd> unlikely to fade away before at least the end of the 20th
jd> century."
Sounds quite censorious, which is odd. Objections to linguistic
behavior are also linguistic behavior, so why not accept them as
such? If highly competent native speakers make them, why not view
them as one aspect of the language?
Also, if the writer wants to be prescriptive, why does he think
that (1) the standard of good usage is past use of analogous
constructions, and (2) the standard is so obvious that those who
reject a particular instance of the construction are evincing a
sort of psychological defect?
jk
--
Jim Kalb
http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000
Derek Turner
> On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature of English
> style and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of English?
I believe it to be an Americanism less than a century old.
Bart Mathias
> Martha G. Smith wrote:
>
>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
>> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
>> post, for example!
>>
>> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
>> & White condemn it.
>>
>>
> "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad, since the twelve riflemen
> had bet their last bullets on his poker game the evening before the
> execution."
>
> The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who
> has hope, thanks to his poker skills).
Some of them prescription grammarians gonna tell you that you can't
modify a noun with no adverb.
Bart Mathias
John Kane
> On 21 Jul 2008, R H Draney wrote
>
> > HVS filted:
> > We just had a set-to on eBay about "off of"...the other fellow
> > first claimed it was a "recent phenomenon", and when confronted
> > with illustrations tracing it to the 16th century, claimed the
> > references were obsolete and therefore irrelevant....
>
> > You can't win with those people....r
>
> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that
> something was a moot point -- as in "debatable", not "trivial".
>
> Someone took great offence, patronisingly informing me that although
> he wasn't sure what I *thought* the word meant, I was clearly
> mistaken about its meaning.
>
> When I had him take a look at a dictionary and establish that my
> usage was still an entirely standard and current meaning, I was
> informed that I shouldn't expect him to know that.
I hope you agreed with him.
John Kane Kingston ON Canada
HVS
> [followups repaired]
>
> On Jul 21, 12:57 pm, HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 21 Jul 2008, Thomas wrote
>
> Nothing that I saw. Apparently this "Thomas" person chose to
> reply directly to me, but to cut my newsgroup out of the
> distribution of his message.
>
> Is "Thomas" an aue-poster of less than normal intellect?
-snip-
> I note that my question was not answered.
I suspect it's not his fault, but is down to my news server and how
I have to cross-post.
I read Usenet through albasani.net; when something is cross-posted
to certain hierarchies -- one of which is alt.* -- it *insists*
that a follow-up group (and just one) is specified -- if it's not,
it won't post.
I set my follow-ups to AUE (as I don't read sci.lang), and Thomas
has presumably replied to you on a second-level quote that has gone
down the AUE follow-up rabbit-hole, since he won't realise that he
needs to re-insert sci.lang.
(I've set the required follow-up to sci.lang this time, which means
I won't see responses to this unless AUE is added back into the
cross-posts.)
HVS
Good point: indeed I did.
But I also refused point-blank to apologise for using a word with
one of its established, legitimate, and current meanings.
HVS
To what dooes "it" refer to in your response?
Do you mean the use of an initial adverb to modify a sentence -- like
"Frankly", and "Unfortunately"?
If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too
irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the
discussion.
(You might as well object to it because "the Germans use that
construction".)
CDB
> On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle"
[one more round]
>> (2) Anybody who doesn't see that
>> "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied.
> Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that
> Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is living
> in the wrong age. Please return to the era of, at least, the
> Counter- Reformation.
There is nothing particularly germanic about "hopefully". Perhaps you
meant to write "German".
[chin-chin]
Derek Turner
>
>
> If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too
> irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the
> discussion.
whatever. who gives a fuck?
HVS
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:31:57 +0100, HVS wrote:
[shrug] You're the one that seemed to.
G'bye.
Derek Turner
probably something thing to do with having won the first prize in the
lottery of life and having been born an Englishman and hating what the
Colonials are doing to our language.
CDB
In my North American usage, it verges on mild rudeness. It conveys
impatience, at least: I might use it to a clerk who seemed reluctant
to interrupt a conversation long enough to reach me down a widget.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree
> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject
> of this post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says
> Strunk & White condemn it.
Both family members are correct. There's nothing wrong with it and
Strunk & White condemn it.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |To find the end of Middle English,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |you discover the exact date and
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |time the Great Vowel Shift took
|place (the morning of May 5, 1450,
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |at some time between neenuh fiftehn
(650)857-7572 |and nahyn twenty-fahyv).
| Kevin Wald
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
Skitt
> HVS wrote:
>> Derek Turner wrote
>>> HVS wrote:
>>>> If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too
>>>> irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the
>>>> discussion.
>>>
>>> whatever. who gives a fuck?
>>
>> [shrug] You're the one that seemed to.
>>
> probably something thing to do with having won the first prize in the
> lottery of life and having been born an Englishman and hating what the
> Colonials are doing to our language.
It has been noted by some who do such research that it is the Colonials who,
in many cases, are more conservative in preservng the language.
I'll quote from one such source (
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/america.html ), a page by a Professor of
English at Washington State University.
===================
It is also worth noting that in a surprising number of cases, American
pronunciation and usage are more conservative than that of the British. Some
instances are noted on these pages in which U.S speakers preserve older
patterns abandoned by speakers in the British Isles.
My goal is to defend American standard usage from the bullying of
non-American critics, and to warn Americans not to be parochial in assuming
that everyone speaks like they do. For obvious reasons, careful writers have
to pay attention to a relatively small number of differences; but we don’t
have to let those differences whip us into a frenzy of mutual denunciation.
===================
--
Skitt (AmE)
Fighting about this is bad, m'kay?
HVS
Ah, yes -- those would be things like:
"not inserting the 'u' in 'color'";
"using the pronunciation for 'herb' that we in England abandoned";
and
"sticking with words like 'acclimate' (first recorded in the 18th
century), instead of switching to 'acclimatise' (19th century)".
You're absolutely correct; those colonials are heartless bastards
for sticking to the older forms of our words. How dare they.
Joachim Pense
hope-, ful-, -ly don't have a Germanic origin?
Joachim
Peter T. Daniels
> On 21 Jul 2008, Peter T. Daniels wrote
>
> > [followups repaired]
>
> > On Jul 21, 12:57 pm, HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> wrote:
> >> On 21 Jul 2008, Thomas wrote
>
> > Nothing that I saw. Apparently this "Thomas" person chose to
> > reply directly to me, but to cut my newsgroup out of the
> > distribution of his message.
>
> > Is "Thomas" an aue-poster of less than normal intellect?
>
> -snip-
>
> > I note that my question was not answered.
>
> I suspect it's not his fault, but is down to my news server and how
> I have to cross-post.
>
> I read Usenet through albasani.net; when something is cross-posted
> to certain hierarchies -- one of which is alt.* -- it *insists*
> that a follow-up group (and just one) is specified -- if it's not,
> it won't post.
And people complain about those who use google groups!!!
> I set my follow-ups to AUE (as I don't read sci.lang), and Thomas
> has presumably replied to you on a second-level quote that has gone
> down the AUE follow-up rabbit-hole, since he won't realise that he
> needs to re-insert sci.lang.
>
> (I've set the required follow-up to sci.lang this time, which means
> I won't see responses to this unless AUE is added back into the
> cross-posts.)
Thusly.
To use google groups, go to google as if you were searching something;
in the upper left there's a drop-down menu from which you can select
"groups." Then tell it you want to see aue, sci.lang, whatever, and
you can crosspost to up to five groups (which is probably more
newsgroups than anything should be posted to anyway).
Peter T. Daniels
Que?
Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but not
in Latin?
Peter T. Daniels
> > Mike Lyle <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding
> >> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent
> >> use of "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?"
> > Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family
> > argument.
> > What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those
> > language changes?
> > FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the
> > other day.
>
> In my North American usage, it verges on mild rudeness. It conveys
> impatience, at least: I might use it to a clerk who seemed reluctant
> to interrupt a conversation long enough to reach me down a widget.
Wouldn't the most expected form simply be "NP + please"?
"A Number Twelve with a small soda, please"
HVS
Yup; that's why many of us use a white list to filter out posts from
there.
Many thanks for the instructions, but I've looked into sci.lang now
and then -- not interested; weird group.
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
Obviously, you are not consulting the original OED.
It had no mng. 2 at all.
FWIW, Fowler doesn't discuss it in the first edition, nor Gowers in
the second, nor does Mencken in any of the three volumes.
Peter T. Daniels
During WWI, Americans ate "liberty cabbage" instead of "sauerkraut."
James Silverton
No, I'm not. The version I use is the online edition available from my
public library.
--
Skitt
> K. Edgcombe wrote:
>> Mike Lyle wrote:
>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding
>>> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent
>>> use of "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?"
>
>> Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family
>> argument.
>
>> What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those
>> language changes?
>
>> FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the
>> other day.
>
> In my North American usage, it verges on mild rudeness. It conveys
> impatience, at least: I might use it to a clerk who seemed reluctant
> to interrupt a conversation long enough to reach me down a widget.
Hmm. "Reach me down", eh? Interesting, or is it just me?
--
Skitt (AmE)
Brian M. Scott
<gram...@verizon.net> wrote in
<news:a5ee6c20-70ec-4ab9...@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>
in sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> On Jul 21, 3:09 pm, "James Silverton" <not.jim.silver...@verizon.net>
> wrote:
[...]
>> "Hopefully" is a perennial topic but the usage is not totally recent.
>> The OED has:
>> Hopefully, adv.
[...]
>> 2. It is hoped (that); let us hope. (Cf. G. hoffentlich it is to be
>> hoped.) orig. U.S. (Avoided by many writers.)
>> 1932 N.Y. Times Book Rev. 24 Jan. 11/4 He would create an expert
>> commission..to consist of ex-Presidents and a selected list of
>> ex-Governors, hopefully not including Pa and Ma Ferguson..............
>> Note the caution!
> Obviously, you are not consulting the original OED.
> It had no mng. 2 at all.
2nd (1989) edition.
[...]
Brian
Joachim Pense
>
> Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but not
> in Latin?
What about Latin fortasse ('perhaps')? Is it a sentence adverb?
Joachim
Ekkehard Dengler
Well, they certainly occur in Romance languages.
Regards,
Ekkehard
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> Martha G. Smith wrote:
>
>
>>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree
>>> of this post, for example!
>>>
>>> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
>>> & White condemn it.
>>>
>>>
>> "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad, since the twelve riflemen
>> had bet their last bullets on his poker game the evening before the
>> execution."
>>
>> The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who
>> has hope, thanks to his poker skills).
>
>
>
> Because there was no "former", I also assumed that you meant "The above"
> instead of "The latter".
>
>>
>> COMPARE:
>>
>> "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade."
>
>
> This is the version where a comma is required.
>
>> Grammatically this is wrong; it should be, "I hope it will not rain on
>> our parade, or, as Babs Streisand put it, "Please don't rain on my
>> parade."
>> However, I am not a prescriptive grammarian. More than a century ago,
>> Mr. Emerson praised the strength of the double negative and few would
>> quarrel with the idiomatic rejoinder, "How do you like them apples?"
>> For purists, "hopefully" can be construed as an ellipsis: "Hopefully
>> [I am of the opinion that] it will not rain on my parade." Hopefully,
>> this
>> sentence will aggravate prescriptive grammarians.
>
>
> Personally, I am not afraid to use "hopefully" to mean "it is hoped".
>
> From M-W Online:
>
> usage
>
> In the 1960s the second sense of hopefully, which dates to the early
> 18th century and had been in fairly widespread use since at least the
> 1930s, underwent a surge in popularity. A surge of criticism followed in
> reaction, but the criticism took no account of the grammar of adverbs.
> Hopefully in its second sense is a member of a class of adverbs known as
> disjuncts. Disjuncts serve as a means by which the author or speaker can
> comment directly to the reader or hearer usually on the content of the
> sentence to which they are attached. Many other adverbs (as
> interestingly, frankly, clearly, luckily, unfortunately) are similarly
> used; most are so ordinary as to excite no comment or interest
> whatsoever. The second sense of hopefully is entirely standard.
>
>
> As for Strunk and White -- yes, they condemned the usage, writing:
> ===================
> Hopefully. This once-useful adverb meaning "with hope" has been
> distorted and is now widely used to mean "I hope" or "it is to be
> hoped." Such use is not merely wrong, it is silly. To say "Hopefully
> I'll leave on the noon plane" is to talk nonsense. Do you mean you'll
> leave on the noon plane in a hopeful frame of mind? Or do you mean you
> hope you'll leave on the noon plane? Whichever you mean, you haven't
> said it clearly. Although the word in its new, free-floating capacity
> may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it offends the ear of many
> others, who do not like to see words dulled or eroded, particularly when
> the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense.
> ===================
>
> About that "clearly" -- without the comma it has the "leave in a hopeful
> frame of mind" meaning. To have the second-listed meaning, a comma is
> required.
>
> Strunk and White are both dead now.
>
Regarding "latter." You're right. The problemw with computer facililty
is one often changes one's text and forgets to review the changes. I'm
notorious for not closing my parentheses for this reason, esp. since I'm
a speed typist and am often thinking five words ahead of the word I'm
typing. I had originally included the two quote together then changed my
mind and decided to analyze them one at a time.
As for commas, I'm using them more liberally than I am in the past. I
used to overpunctuate, not I underpunctuate. The rule is negative rather
than positive: unless a lack of punctuation is confusing, the less
punctuation the better. (Let the reader inflect the sentence.) Just like
paragraphing, the purpse of puncutation is for the reader, not the
writer (the writer KNOWS the meaning of the sentence, how it should be
read; the reader doesn't). I frankly think puncuation is optional in
that sense, like paragraphing. As you can see in your quote from Strunk
and White, the sentence that uses "hopefully" punctuates it the same way
as I did.
"Hopefully it will not rain on our parade."
"Hopefully we'll leave on the noon train."
As for "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad. . . . " punctuation
here is based on style, not on grammar. It's like regulating how to
speak a speech from Shakespeare, where to pause, stress, etc. Obviously
those choices are made by the actor, not by the writer. The actor, if
he's a true actor, is the writer in this case, not the original author
(thought I wouldn't tell that to Bill's face). Compare:
"The man dialed her number, hopefully."
"The man dialed her number--hopefully."
"The man dialed her number hopefully."
We're simply talking about different stresses, ways of imagining the
moment.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> Martha G. Smith wrote:
>
>
>>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree
>>> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject
>>> of this post, for example!
>>>
>>> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
>>> & White condemn it.
>>>
>>> ???
>>>
>> "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad, since the twelve riflemen
>> had bet their last bullets on his poker game the evening before the
>> execution."
>>
>> The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who
>> has hope, thanks to his poker skills).
>
>
> Yeah, but to put a comma after the "Hopefully" is wrong in this case.
>
> Because there was no "former", I also assumed that you meant "The above"
> instead of "The latter".
>
>>
>> COMPARE:
>>
>> "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade."
>
>
> This is the version where a comma is required.
I addressed this issue in a previous post; But see this item sent by
another poster in this thread, citing a New York Times article:
Jeffrey Turner
>
>
> We just had a set-to on eBay about "off of"...the other fellow first claimed it
> was a "recent phenomenon", and when confronted with illustrations tracing it to
> the 16th century, claimed the references were obsolete and therefore
> irrelevant....
>
> You can't win with those people....r
Hey (hey) you (you), don't do that.
--Jeff
--
The struggle with evil by means of violence
is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud,
in order that there may be no rain. -Leo Tolstoy
Jeffrey Turner
> Thomas filted:
>
>>>>>>>"ptd" == Peter T Daniels <gram...@verizon.net> writes:
>>
>> ptd> How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn
>> ptd> any other sentence adverbs?
>>
>> ptd> Curiously, they never do.
>>
>>An excellent question.
>>
>>Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising proportion of
>>recognized experts on usage, it seems that it's a question about
>>the peculiarities of "hopefully" rather than the peculiarities of
>>the condemners.
>
>
> If only we could divert their attention to "basically"....r
, he said, his tongue dripping acid...
Jeffrey Turner
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:46:54 +0100, HVS
> <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>On 21 Jul 2008, Mike Lyle wrote
>>
>>
>>>Martha G. Smith wrote:
>>>
>>>>Two members of my family both teach college English and
>>>>disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence --
>>>>in the subject of this post, for example!
>>>>
>>>>My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says
>>>>Strunk & White condemn it.
>>>>
>>>>???
>>>
>>>What everybody else said is right, but so is what I'm going to
>>>say. (1) Anybody who thinks "hopefully" is more succinct than "I
>>>hope", "we hope", "they hoped", etc, can't count.
>>
>>That glosses over the cases where the alternative forms strike an
>>inappropriate tone.
>>
>>"I hope the meeting will go ahead as planned" can be too personal;
>>"We hope..." sounds frightfully royal, doncha' know; and "It is to
>>be hoped..." can come across as pompous as hell.
>>
>
> And "Let's hope..." might be too informal.
Let us pray... Well, it's not too informal, anyway.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote
>
>
>>On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:31:57 +0100, HVS wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>>If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too
>>>irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the
>>>discussion.
>>
>>whatever. who gives a fuck?
>
ANSWER: A charitable prostitute who donates her services to a poor john.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>>On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle"
>
>
> [one more round]
>
>
>>>(2) Anybody who doesn't see that
>>>"hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied.
>
>
>>Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that
>>Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is living
>>in the wrong age. Please return to the era of, at least, the
>>Counter- Reformation.
>
>
> There is nothing particularly germanic about "hopefully". Perhaps you
> meant to write "German".
>
> [chin-chin]
>
>
Neither of this is germane to the topic.
Jeffrey Turner
Normal construct to me. Would you prefer "fetch"?
Jeffrey Turner
> On Jul 21, 4:31 pm, HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote
>>
>>
>>>On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:45:38 -0700, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>>>On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature of
>>>>English style and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of
>>>>English?
>>
>>>I believe it to be an Americanism less than a century old.
>>
>>To what dooes "it" refer to in your response?
>>
>>Do you mean the use of an initial adverb to modify a sentence -- like
>>"Frankly", and "Unfortunately"?
>>
>>If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too
>>irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the
>>discussion.
>>
>>(You might as well object to it because "the Germans use that
>>construction".)
>
> During WWI, Americans ate "liberty cabbage" instead of "sauerkraut."
I'm sure that was critical to the war effort.
Roland Hutchinson
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
>> On Jul 21, 4:31 pm, HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:45:38 -0700, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>
>>>>>On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature of
>>>>>English style and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of
>>>>>English?
>>>
>>>>I believe it to be an Americanism less than a century old.
>>>
>>>To what dooes "it" refer to in your response?
>>>
>>>Do you mean the use of an initial adverb to modify a sentence -- like
>>>"Frankly", and "Unfortunately"?
>>>
>>>If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too
>>>irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the
>>>discussion.
>>>
>>>(You might as well object to it because "the Germans use that
>>>construction".)
>>
>> During WWI, Americans ate "liberty cabbage" instead of "sauerkraut."
>
> I'm sure that was critical to the war effort.
Insofar as it helped to prevent scurvy, it was.
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
Mark Brader
> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that
> something was a moot point -- as in "debatable", not "trivial".
"Inconsequential", not "trivial". But the point is moot as regards
Harvey's comment, of course.
--
Mark Brader "Could you please continue the petty bickering?
Toronto I find it most intriguing."
m...@vex.net -- Data ("Haven", ST:TNG, Tracy Torme)
LFS
> In article <g626vo$iis$1...@registered.motzarella.org>,
> Mike Lyle <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding
>> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of
>> "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?"
>
> Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family argument.
>
> What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those language changes?
>
> FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the other day.
>
I gave up on this one some years ago when I realised that this was just
the way our children spoke and repeated correction just wasn't going to
change it. At least they usually remember to add "please" at the end.
But when out and about in their company I always have to brace myself
when they are asked what they would like to eat or drink.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> K. Edgcombe wrote:
>
>> In article <g626vo$iis$1...@registered.motzarella.org>,
>> Mike Lyle <mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding
>>> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of
>>> "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?"
>>
>>
>> Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family argument.
>>
>> What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those
>> language changes?
>>
>> FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the other
>> day.
>>
R H Draney
>
>R H Draney wrote:
>
>> If only we could divert their attention to "basically"....r
>
>, he said, his tongue dripping acid...
"The pH of this solution is too high", Tom said caustically....r
--
Evelyn Wood just looks at the pictures.
R H Draney
>
>"The man dialed her number, hopefully."
>"The man dialed her number--hopefully."
>"The man dialed her number hopefully."
>
>We're simply talking about different stresses, ways of imagining the
>moment.
I'm having a Flanders & Swann moment here:
"The man dialed her number with skill, eagerness, and the eraser end of a Sonic
the Hedgehog pencil."
angelgl...@yahoo.com
"She dressed with dignity and a business suit."
"She flaunted her sexuality and her short skirt."
"Mrs. Higgins wore earrings and an scornful smile as she pulled the
trigger six times, watchng her husband die slowly."
anal...@hotmail.com
> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> post, for example!
>
> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> & White condemn it.
>
> ???
I don't think I have seen the simplest explanation of the origin of
this construct - ellipsis:
(I/we/everybody say/says) hopefully (that) whatever.
Since it sounds illiterate, I am sure that no serious writer would use
this construct except perhaps as something one of his characters might
say.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>On a much less theoretical point, it seems to me that "hopefully"
>is a bit different from "frankly" and "seriously." The latter
>suggest a break and intensification in the discussion. So they're
>useful markers. "Hopefully" suggests continued slush. So it annoys
>people who don't like slush.
The objection is that "hopeful" means "full of hope", "Frankly" doesn't mean
thaty you are full of frank, and seriously doesn't mean that you are full of
serious.
There is a similar problem with "purposefully", which some people use when
they mean "purposely".
While it's not a perfect synonym, you could try substituting "optimistically"
for "hopefully" in the subject line to see the effect.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Steve Hayes
<mar...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
>using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
>post, for example!
>
>My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
>& White condemn it.
Frankly, it's a moot point.
Nathan Sanders
<c35bae16-593d-4c5e...@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Jul 21, 9:19 am, Martha G. Smith <mar...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> > post, for example!
> >
> > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> > & White condemn it.
> >
> > ???
>
> I don't think I have seen the simplest explanation of the origin of
> this construct - ellipsis:
>
> (I/we/everybody say/says) hopefully (that) whatever.
You have seen that explanation because anyone who considered rejected
it outight. When true ellipsis occurs, the elliptical element has to
be recoverable from the rest of the utterance (usually from some
identical overt element corresponding to the elliptical element). For
example:
(1) Ten sparrows landed on my fence, and three on my house.
This can only mean (2), not (3) or (4):
(2) .... and three sparrows landed on my house.
(3) ..., and three hawks landed on my house.
(4) ..., and three sparrows pooped on my house.
But there is nothing overt inside (5) to allow you to reconstruct (6):
(5) Hopefully, you understand this.
(6) I am saying hopefully that you understand this.
Furthermore, (5) and (6) don't really have exactly the same meaning,
so deriving (5) from (6) wouldn't make sense. (5) really means
something much more like (7):
(7) I hope that you understand this.
which is not related to (5) by ellipsis.
The simplest explanation is that "hopefully" is just one of dozens of
sentential adverbs that already exist in English (surely, probably,
luckily, alternatively, notably, oddly, remarkably, firstly,
surprisingly, logically, crucially, honestly, theoretically,
seriously, etc.). "Hopefully", like many of these adverbs, has at
least two possible meanings/usages:
(8) Hopefully, John read the report.
a. = I hope that he read it
b. = he read it in a hopeful manner
(9) Surely, John climbed the mountain.
a. = I am sure that he climbed it
b. = he climbed it with sure footing
(10) Logically, John passed the test.
a. = it is logical that he passed
b. = he used logic to pass it
(11) Honestly, John writes great essays.
a. = I am giving an honest opinion that he writes great essays
b. = he writes great essays in an honest manner
(12) Theoretically, John proved water can boil.
a. = it is theoretically possible that he proved it can boil
b. = he proved it can boil using theoretical, not empirical, means
Note how the (b) readings can be rendered nonsensical (or at least
odd) with a different choice of words, leaving only the (a) readings
as salient/viable:
(8') Hopefully, John is in deep despair right now.
(9') Surely, John faltered while climbing the mountain.
(10') Logically, John failed the LSAT.
(11') Honestly, John lies all the time.
(12') Theoretically, John conducted an actual titration experiment.
Unsurprisingly, a few grammar nuts have gotten their panties in a
bunch over one particular word, completely ignoring how it fits into a
larger pattern in the language.
Nathan
--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/
Nathan Sanders
Nathan Sanders <nsan...@williams.edu> wrote:
> When true ellipsis occurs, the elliptical element has to
> be recoverable from the rest of the utterance
(or from a previous utterance in the discourse)
HVS
>>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes:
>
> HVS> On 21 Jul 2008, Martha G. Smith wrote
> >> Two members of my family both teach college English and
> >> disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole
sentence
>
> HVS> "Sentence adverbs" -- words like "hopefully", "frankly",
> HVS> and "seriously" -- have been used to qualify the whole
of
> HVS> a sentence since at least the 17th century. The usage
has,
> HVS> however, increased greatly in the past 30 or 40 years.
>
> HVS> So your husband's right and your cousin and S&W are, in
my
> HVS> view, displaying historical illiteracy.
>
> I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have
sometimes
> been used in the past determines whether something is good usage
> *now*. Doesn't the present state of a language create its own
rules
> to some extent? If the people who care about language and use it
> well don't like a construction, there's probably something wrong
> with it. Or so it seems to me.
>
> On a much less theoretical point, it seems to me that "hopefully"
> is a bit different from "frankly" and "seriously." The latter
> suggest a break and intensification in the discussion. So they're
> useful markers. "Hopefully" suggests continued slush. So it
annoys
> people who don't like slush.
Lots of us who have no problem with "hopefully" don't like slush;
we just don't see "hopefully" as slush. That's a subjective rather
than clear-cut judgement, and I'd say that your statement really
amounts to nothing more than "people who don't like "hopefully"
don't like it".
And some of us don't like tautological reasoning even more than we
don't like slush.
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have sometimes
> been used in the past determines whether something is good usage
> *now*. Doesn't the present state of a language create its own rules
> to some extent? If the people who care about language and use it
> well don't like a construction, there's probably something wrong
> with it. Or so it seems to me.
It's one thing to object to something as old-fashioned and another to
scorn it as new-fangled. The objection to sentence modifying
"hopefully" is that it's newly arrived, and the objectors don't want
it admittted to the language. Show them that it's of long standing
and they'll object that it was never any good and should now be
ushered out. Heads I win and all that.
At any rate, there is no "the people who use the language" in the
sense you mean. There are many people who speak many Englishes, and
usage is by consensus. Few native speakers of English under, say, 40
years of age have any idea that there's an objection to "hopefully"
until they read about it in a "usage" book or hear it from a usage
snob. And even when the great majority of contemporary usage books
describe the objection as a superstition lacking any grounding in
actual usage, the snobs scorn the usage books as "too descriptive" and
carry on as before.
My own opinion is that "hopefully" as sentence adverb serves a useful
purpose and is solidly lodged in the language. The battle has been
lost, but the snobs haven't yet heard the news. If necessary, they'll
cover their ears rather than change their minds. Their loss.
--
Bob Lieblich
Where am I, and how did I get here?
anal...@hotmail.com
> In article
> <c35bae16-593d-4c5e-ac8b-536a51ca0...@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
Surely, "surely Mr. Feynman, you are joking" and "Frankly my dear, I
don't give a damn" sound correct and idiomatic, while "hopefully"
constructions sound not quite cultivated or educated ?
HVS
-snip-
> Few native speakers of
> English under, say, 40 years of age have any idea that there's
> an objection to "hopefully" until they read about it in a
> "usage" book or hear it from a usage snob. And even when the
> great majority of contemporary usage books describe the
> objection as a superstition lacking any grounding in actual
> usage, the snobs scorn the usage books as "too descriptive" and
> carry on as before.
Precisely. This is one of those usage markers that has more in
common with cats marking their territory than it does with any real
concern for the language -- like lavatory/toilet/loo, or
napkin/serviette.
HVS
> Surely, "surely Mr. Feynman, you are joking" and "Frankly my
> dear, I don't give a damn" sound correct and idiomatic, while
> "hopefully" constructions sound not quite cultivated or educated
> ?
"Hopefully, Mr Feynman, you are joking" sounds entirely idiomatic to
me.
Nathan Sanders
<bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9...@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Surely, "surely Mr. Feynman, you are joking" and "Frankly my dear, I
> don't give a damn" sound correct and idiomatic,
Why do you say "idiomatic"? The surety and the frankness are actually
present, and thus, are literal; idioms are figurative. ("Surely" may
sometimes be used *sarcastically*, but sarcasm is not an idiom either.)
> while "hopefully"
> constructions sound not quite cultivated or educated ?
Sentential "hopefully" sounds perfectly unremarkable, and I would pay
no more attention to it than to any other ordinary sentential adverb.
And I most certainly would not be so rude and arrogant as to ignore
the content of what someone is saying in order to focus on some
arbitrary, artificial rule with no basis in the reality of English.
Peter T. Daniels
> On Jul 21, 9:19 am, Martha G. Smith <mar...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about
> > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this
> > post, for example!
>
> > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk
> > & White condemn it.
>
> > ???
>
> I don't think I have seen the simplest explanation of the origin of
> this construct - ellipsis:
>
> (I/we/everybody say/says) hopefully (that) whatever.
Oh, look, you've reinvented Generative Semantics.
CDB
>> [one more round]
>>>> (2) Anybody who doesn't see that
>>>> "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied.
>>> Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that
>>> Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is
>>> living in the wrong age. Please return to the era of, at least,
>>> the Counter- Reformation.
>>
>> There is nothing particularly germanic about "hopefully". Perhaps
>> you meant to write "German".
>> [chin-chin]
> Que?
A kind of joke.
> Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but
> not in Latin?
Romani sane habuerunt. "Fortasse", suggested by Joachim Pense, is
another example. These are not exactly like "hopefully", but I
suspect that germanic dialects contemporary with classical Latin
lacked exact parallels too, if they had sentence adverbs at that
stage.
Et puis, franchement, comme l'a indiqué Ekkehard Dengler, ça existe
aussi dans les langues latines modernes.
In fact, I hadn't taken your original statement, to which I objected,
to refer to sentence adverbs in general. You were replying to a
specific condemnation of the use of "hopefully" as a sentence adverb:
this is not particularly or specifically a "Germanic" construction,
but it does appear that its English use may have been inspired by the
German example.
CDB
> CDB wrote:
>> K. Edgcombe wrote:
>>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more
>>>> rewarding hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the
>>>> moronic recent use of "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?"
>>
>>> Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family
>>> argument.
>>
>>> What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those
>>> language changes?
>>> FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the
>>> other day.
>> In my North American usage, it verges on mild rudeness. It conveys
>> impatience, at least: I might use it to a clerk who seemed
>> reluctant to interrupt a conversation long enough to reach me down
>> a widget.
> Hmm. "Reach me down", eh? Interesting, or is it just me?
Now that you point it out. I used it quite naturally, so it must be
part of my idiolect. It means "reach up and take down for me", in my
intention. I think that for "stretch out and give to me from above',
I would say "hand me down"; but now I'm thinking about it.
angelgl...@yahoo.com
> In article
> <bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9...@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
> anal...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>
>>On Jul 22, 5:34 am, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@williams.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Unsurprisingly, a few grammar nuts have gotten their panties in a
>>>bunch over one particular word, completely ignoring how it fits into a
>>>larger pattern in the language.
>>
>>Surely, "surely Mr. Feynman, you are joking" and "Frankly my dear, I
>>don't give a damn" sound correct and idiomatic,
>
>
> Why do you say "idiomatic"? The surety and the frankness are actually
> present, and thus, are literal; idioms are figurative. ("Surely" may
> sometimes be used *sarcastically*, but sarcasm is not an idiom either.)
>
expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language,
whether it falls into the category of formal idiom or not. The
commutation test is whether an ESL student would come up with a sentence
such as "Frankly, my dear I don't give a damn," and that's highly
unlikely to say the least. Therefore the construction is idiomatic. In
other words don't confuse idiom and idiomatic, a derived meaning from
"idiom," the way that "criminal" is a derived meaning from "crime," and
not having the same substantive sense as "crime" ("It was criminal the
way he wasted his entire salary on poker last weekend."
CDB
To travel, hopefully, is better than to arrive.
Jim Kalb
>> I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have
>> sometimes been used in the past determines whether something
>> is good usage *now*. Doesn't the present state of a language
>> create its own rules to some extent? If the people who care
>> about language and use it well don't like a construction,
>> there's probably something wrong with it. Or so it seems to
>> me.
rl> It's one thing to object to something as old-fashioned and
rl> another to scorn it as new-fangled. The objection to
rl> sentence modifying "hopefully" is that it's newly arrived,
rl> and the objectors don't want it admittted to the language.
rl> Show them that it's of long standing and they'll object
rl> that it was never any good and should now be ushered out.
rl> Heads I win and all that.
You've demonstrated that people who object to it often don't
articulate the basis of their objection at all well. That's no
surprise of course. It's difficult to explain evaluations
persuasively to those who reject them, so much so that most people
never learn how to present a coherent argument on such matters.
rl> At any rate, there is no "the people who use the language"
rl> in the sense you mean. There are many people who speak many
rl> Englishes, and usage is by consensus.
"Many Englishes" is irrelevant, since discussions of usage apply
within particular Englishes. And if usage is simply consensus, what
is the consensus about? Is it consensus about consensus? Or is it
consensus about good usage? If the latter, then "good usage" can't
simply mean "consensus."
rl> And even when the great majority of contemporary usage
rl> books describe the objection as a superstition lacking any
rl> grounding in actual usage, the snobs scorn the usage books
rl> as "too descriptive" and carry on as before.
If usage books say that, how do they distinguish linguistic
superstitions from actual features of usage? And why use a
derogatory word like "snob"? Are some features of linguistic
behavior--for example, rejection of particular
constructions--somehow unscientific and immoral?
I've asked a lot of questions, so I'll state my own view: language
is an enormously complex system that we will never understand
completely. We use it and live by it, which means we try to use it
well in order to live well, so our understanding of it essentially
involves evaluations. Those evaluations are normally as complex and
subtle as language itself. That being the case, if there's
something that bothers many intelligent people about a particular
usage, it makes more sense to try to understand what's going on
than to abuse them as snobs on the basis of some theory about how
usage becomes good usage.
As to "hopefully," I don't like it. "Frankly" or "seriously" or
"honestly" add punch to a discussion. "Hopefully" just seems weak.
I find that my response aligns with the response of many other
people. So I conclude there's probably something to it. After all,
not all adverbs that could function as sentence adverbs are used as
such. So people do seem to feel that some are more fit to be used
that way than others. That being so, why shouldn't disagreements as
to particular cases be legitimate? And if there really is something
beyond consensus to the notion of good usage, why shouldn't those
who are at present in the minority sometimes be right?
--
Jim Kalb
http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000
António Marques
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> On Jul 21, 4:32 pm, "CDB"<bellema...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>> On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle"
>>> [one more round]
>>>
>>>>> (2) Anybody who doesn't see that
>>>>> "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied.
>>>> Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that
>>>> Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is living
>>>> in the wrong age. Please return to the era of, at least, the
>>>> Counter- Reformation.
>>> There is nothing particularly germanic about "hopefully". Perhaps
>>> you meant to write "German".
>>>
>>> [chin-chin]
>> Que?
>>
>> in Latin?
>
But are very rare. The kind of adverbial thing that english expresses
with initial adverb plus comma is usually expressed in romance with
preposition plus object plus comma, or some equivalent.
--
António Marques
--
This signature does not include a prefab parting phrase
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
HVS
>
> As to "hopefully," I don't like it. "Frankly" or "seriously" or
> "honestly" add punch to a discussion. "Hopefully" just seems
> weak. I find that my response aligns with the response of many
> other people. So I conclude there's probably something to it.
> After all, not all adverbs that could function as sentence
> adverbs are used as such. So people do seem to feel that some
> are more fit to be used that way than others. That being so, why
> shouldn't disagreements as to particular cases be legitimate?
Nobody has any argument with "I and others don't like it; it seems
weak to us; therefore we refuse to use it".
But when that preference is elevated to a universal rule -- "I and
others don't like it; it seems weak to us; therefore no-one should
be allowed to use it" -- it's no more than a group marker
masquerading as an authoritative standard.
In other words, no-one is forcing anyone to accept or use
"hopefully"; but equally, the view that this particuluar sentence
adverb "just seems weak" doesn't present any sort of legitimate
reason for others to accept that it's wrong.
> And if there really is something
> beyond consensus to the notion of good usage,
Many of us don't accept that there is.
Ekkehard Dengler
> Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Jul 21, 4:32 pm, "CDB"<bellema...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>>> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>>> On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle"
>>>> [one more round]
>>>>
>>>>>> (2) Anybody who doesn't see that
>>>>>> "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied.
>>>>> Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that
>>>>> Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is
>>>>> living in the wrong age. Please return to the era of, at least,
>>>>> the Counter- Reformation.
>>>> There is nothing particularly germanic about "hopefully". Perhaps
>>>> you meant to write "German".
>>>>
>>>> [chin-chin]
>>> Que?
>>>
>>> Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but
>>> not in Latin?
>>
>> Well, they certainly occur in Romance languages.
>
> But are very rare. The kind of adverbial thing that english expresses
> with initial adverb plus comma is usually expressed in romance with
> preposition plus object plus comma, or some equivalent.
I don't think sentence adverbs are significantly less common in Portuguese
than in English. "Felizmente", "infelizmente", "provavelmente",
"curiosamente", "naturalmente", "teoricamente" and "francamente", for
instance, are used quite frequently.
Regards,
Ekkehard
James Silverton
> angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:
>> LFS wrote:
>> Hopefully this issue will disapper some day.
>To travel, hopefully, is better than to arrive.
Did you really mean that? It seems to be a use of hopefully that the
"grammarians" might object to. I had always thought the adage was "To
travel hopefully, is better than to arrive" since one's hopes may be
dashed on arrival.
--
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not