Here is a common way I have supposedly misused the word, hopefully:
Hopefully, he kicked the dog.
The sentence itself is not incorrect but the way I use it, the way I would have 'hopefully' mean in the sentence is all wrong, according to some pesky grammarians. They say there are two ways to read this sentence and only one of them is correct. Take a crack at it! The sentence could mean:
A) I hope he kicked the dog.
B) With hope in his heart, he kicked the dog
Yeah, the answer is B.
The majority of grammarians, however, have long accepted that both are correct. The reason is, 'hopefully' has been used to mean ‘I hope’ or ‘it is hoped’ so often that they feel obligated to accept it.
Though I have used it incorrectly thousands of times in the past, and will likely continue to do so in the future, I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea to make something valid simply because of wide spread use. For me it's a tough call. I’m truly on the fence on this one, how about you?
BTW, 'thankfully,' has the same problem.
BTW, 'thankfully,' has the same problem.
1 comment:
Hopefully, I have forced myself through chapters 1a through 1c. The dialog is truly terrible, I feel no sympathy for the main character, and I feel no interest in how his brother died.
I am a glutton for punishment, and for some reason I am up to the task of continuing on. The narration between dialog is alright. Some weak points, but some good. Like I said above, it needs some more work on the main character, to force some sympathy on the reader, and thereby giving him/her a reason to be interested in his brother's death... But, overall it's a good read on a sleepless night.
Thankfully, however, I notice that there is not much left posted on your blog.
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