At 10:16 PM 8/15/2002 -0400, James and Mary Burbidge wrote: >Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > > Ah, you don't like imprecision? You must be very unhappy with English, > > which, unlike German, fails to force its speakers to distinguish a male > > friend (Freund) from a female one (Freundin) and an intimate "you" (du) > > from a polite one (Sie)... let alone Hebrew, which distinguishes male > > "you" (atah) from female "you" (at). --- Oh, but German *does* have a > > word that means just what the newer use of "hopefully" covers: > > hoeffentlich. > > > >I'm afraid I have to agree with Steve on this one -- shifts in language >which lead to loss of the possibility of nuanced expression are to be >deplored; but that isn't the same as wanting to import all the >distinctions of other languages simply to expand the language (FWIW, I >would think that Greek, with its very much greater flexibility, is an >even better counterexample than German). Well put. >_My_ bete noire, however, is not "hopefully", but the breakdown in the >distinction between "shall" and "will". Hmmm. I believe I shall pick up that banner myself.