Although I graduated from college almost 30 years ago, I still say I AM an English major rather than I WAS an English major. That self-identification is probably indicative of why I enjoy usage manuals like The Elements of Style by Strunk and White entirely too much.
Thinking about writing on this month’s theme of Hope, I kept coming back to this passage:
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.
Read more at Everyday Ediths!
Living Hopefully vs. Hopefully Living
