Dragaera

Hopefully - Found it! :)

Chris Olson - SunPS Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM
Fri Aug 16 09:04:31 PDT 2002

Finaly found the passage in "Line by Line"
by Claire Kehrwald Cook, in which is written:

Hopefully - Word watchers who wince at what some
call a "dangling hopefully" have much to endure these
days.  "Hopefully" sometimes seems to begin every
third sentence, but only rarely does the sentence indicate who 
is full of hope.  The adverb is unexcetionable when it means
"in a hopeful manner," as in 'The candidates are hopefully
awaiting the election results,' but it's suspect
in 'Hopefully the results will be favorable,' where no one is
behaving hopefully.  Some critics maintain that you cannot
make hopefully mean "it is hoped that."  If that's the sense you
intend, that's the wording you should use--or, less formally,
'I hope that' or 'let's hope that.'
	While you still risk criticism if you use a dangling
hopefully, many commentators seem resigned to this usage, 
bowing to its wide popularity.....A note in the 1982 edition of
the American Heritage Dictionary, while not condemning the secondary
sense of hopefully as incorrect, concludes that it has become
"such a bugbear to traditionalists that it is best avoided on
grounds of civility."
	You might decide to forgo the controversial hopefully
simply because it's overworked, but if you object to it as
ungrammatical, you should recognize that certain other adverbs
are in the same category.  Any adverb describing a mental
attitude is inappropriate, by strict standards, in a sentence
that does not indicate who has that attitude.  If 'hopefully' is
incorrect in 'Hopefully it is not true,' words like sorrowfully
and regretfully would also be wrong.  But adverbs like fortunately
and regrettably, which do not describe states of mind, are
acceptable sentence modifiers; they mean "it is fortunate that"
and "it is regretable that."  'Regrettably' can safely replace the
objectionable 'regretfully' in a sentence like 'Regretfully, the
trains don't leave at convenient times.'  Unfortunately, English
does not have a 'hopably' to replace the questionable 'hopefully'
in 'Hopefully, the trains will run on time.'


Taken from Line by Line (which is a pretty good book,
>from all that I've read.)  

Just thought I'd share another opinion on the subject...:)

Chris