The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English calls them adverbials that can be "restated as to-clauses or that-clauses with adjectives describing attitude." In sentences such as "Hopefully this problem will be solved when the group is thoroughly revised," hopefully "might be glossed as 'I am hopeful that.'" Longman notes this hopefully occurs in formal writing as well as conversational and fiction writing. Yet we've been using sentence adverbs since the 1600s. Some traditionalists' argument against our modern hopefully is part of a larger argument against sentence adverbs, according to Oxford Dictionaries. Traditionalists are generally the last to know when a word has gained acceptance by the language community.
Soon the word reaches that upper echelon, language traditionalists. The more the word is used, the more it spreads into more formal language. As long as everyone who uses the word agrees on the meaning, the meaning is acceptable. Words and their meanings travel from the bottom up: ordinary people using a word repeatedly with a consistent meaning. The trouble is that the "it's not a word" crowd think meanings have to be ordained by some sort of literary royalty. Although it's not the 300-plus years of the "in a hopeful manner" meaning, how long does a word have to be used before it can be declared acceptable? The problem with Bernstein's argument is that by the time of More Language That Needs Watching, hopefully had been used to mean "it is hoped that" for 30 years. Comparing hopefully to fortunately or luckily in The Careful Writer, he makes the case that hopefully doesn't mean "it is hoped that" so it can't be used as a sentence adverb. "Careful Writer" Theodore Bernstein seems to have been the first, in his 1962 More Language That Needs Watching, and other notable language commentators quickly followed.īernstein's chief complaint against the sentence adverb is that it is a solecism. Critics shortly began speaking out against it. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage notes that although the sentence adverb usage has been around since 1932, it didn't become popular in print until the early 1960s.
This usage is dated to 1932 by other resources, including the Online Etymology Dictionary, which notes that hopefully replaces the "admittedly awkward 'it is to be hoped that.'" What writer wouldn't want to say in one word what otherwise must be said passively in six? New York Times Book Review, January 24, 1932 He would create an expert commission to consist of ex-Presidents and a selected list of ex-Governors, hopefully not including Pa and Ma Ferguson. The Oxford English Dictionary records the first use of the modern hopefully in 1932 in the venerable New York Times: Why has there been such a strong backlash against hopefully as a sentence adverb? Many dictionaries, usage manuals, style guides, and writing experts have said to stay away from using hopefully as a sentence adverb "in careful writing." When the AP made its announcement at the annual American Copy Editors Society's conference, the audience audibly gasped. The AP wasn't the only language commentator to warn against using hopefully in this modern sense. Last month, The AP Stylebook, the style guide for many American newspapers, finally gave up on restricting hopefully to its original meaning, "in a hopeful manner." The stylebook now also allows hopefully to be as a sentence adverb meaning "it is hoped" or "it is to be hoped that."