Whoops. I started this reply and then put it on the stack while checking the thread. Then I forgot that I'd spiked it, and referred to it as "my earlier post", although I'm only about to send it now. Sorry for the confusion!! -- Mark A. Mandel, chronologically impaired On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Steven Brust wrote: #> 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. # #Interestingly means, "this interests me and ought to interest you." There #is no ambiguity. Same with frankly, luckily, and clearly. The problem #with hopefully is its ambiguity. Well, now... ISTM that "hopefully" runs parallel to "luckily": X thinks that the event referred to is a good thing, "luckily" if it is known to be the case, "hopefully" if its actuality is in doubt (either future or already fixed but not known to the speaker). And if the definitions that we can find in dictionaries don't reflect this parallelism, maybe it's because people's intuitions about "hopefully", when they tried to look at them, were still in flux at the time, and maybe they still are. Hmm. American Heritage Dict, 4th edn, 2000: ===== Usage Note ... It is not easy to explain why critics dislike this use of "hopefully". The use is justified by analogy to similar uses of many other advers, as in "Mercifully, the play was brief" or "Frankly, I have no use for your friend". ... Someone who says "Hopefully, the treaty will be ratified" makes a hopeful prediction about the fate of the treaty, whereas someone who says "I hope" (or "We hope" or "It is hoped") "the treaty will be ratified" expresses a bald statement about what is desired. Only the latter could be continued with a clause such as "but it isn't likely". ... It is not the use of sentence adverbs per se that bothers the [AHD's Usage] Panel; rather the specific use of "hopefully" in this way has become a shibboleth. shibboleth n. 1. A word or pronunciation that distinguishes people of one group or class from those of another. ... 3. A custom or practice that betrays one as an outsider. ===== Intending no disrespect to the rear guard, I nevertheless agree with the Usage Note. I can see no harm done to the language by adding this use of "hopefully" to the old one, which is not generally confusable with it. -- Mark A. Mandel