Mark A Mandel writes:
Let us ban the word "obviously".
Obviously, we should.
Summary: The sentence-adverbial use of "hopefully" is not confusing,
does not supplant the emotional sense, and provides a short, convenient
way of saying something useful.
Yes, but it is inelegant, given that there are other ways of
expressing the same content that are not cumbersome.
Let's face it: we're lazy speakers.
rone
--
{Reagan's} presidency always reminded me of a remark made by a woman to
Heywood Broun following Secretariat's victory in the Triple Crown. After the
trauma of Vietnam and Watergate, she said, Secretariat had "restored her faith
in humanity." I like to think Reagan was the Secretariat of the eighties.
- Garry Trudeau