From: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Webster's on Sentence Adverbs
Date: 11 Apr 92 20:39:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: unix.204767
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <SLAGLE.92Apr8220306@sgi417.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com> slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com writes:

>In article <204370@unix.cis.pitt.edu> dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes:

>   Thus, "hopefully" fills a need in the language, and
>   facilitates ease of communication.  (I don't necessarily buy the "It is
>   to be hoped that..." parsing; see below.)

Which, after some oratory, prompted the following analysis:

>Consider the following
>sentence, heard daily on some large number of radio stations:
>
>  "Hopefully, we will win today."
>
>The passive rendering suggested by you and others is:
>
>  "It is to be hoped that we will win today."

Where have I suggested this?  I've *denied* this, right up there about 18
lines of text ago.  Or is "I don't ... buy _____" an unfamiliar idiom for
you?  If so, I apologize; I should try to maintain a more standard usage
in this forum, since it is read by people with widely varying idiolects. 

>I think these sentences deserve all the derision you can muster.

Certainly.

>The real problem is that
>the "Hopefully..." construction, if read literally, does not
>express the plain meaning that is intended.  Toward the ends
>of clarity and simplicity, I offer this substitute:
>
>  "I hope we will win today."

Yeah, I was waiting for this one.  (I'll pass over the "if read literally";
how else might one read it?  Figuratively?  Ironically?)

Perhaps when you say "Hopefully, ______", you mean "I hope _______".  Or,
rather, *if* you said such a thing (which you wouldn't), that's what you
would mean by it.

Unfortunately, that's not what *I* mean when I say "Hopefully, _______".
If it were, then I'd just have said "I hope _____.", and everyone would have
been satisfied.  There's a difference of scope, for one thing.  In the former,
I am not making a claim exclusively about my personal desires, but rather
suggesting a consensus (and perhaps even attempting to elicit some information
from the person I'm addressing).  The pragmatics of this usage are quite
different from simple "I hope _____."  There's also a normative aspect: a
suggestion that yes, I hope this, but that you should also hope this.

If you can suggest an alternative phrasing which conveys these aspects of the
"Hopefully, ____" construction, in a less controversial yet unstilted way, 
I will be only too happy to quit using "hopefully" as a sentence modifier.

>As I final irony, I note that despite your spirited defense
>of the usage you still don't seem to think it is good enough
>for your own final sentence:

>   I certainly hope that you don't interpret anything I've said here as a 
>   personal attack.

Despite some people's willful misunderstanding of me, my purpose here is not
to antagonize anyone.  I've been told that people around here find the usage
offensive; common politeness dictates that I avoid it, if there are reasonable
alternatives.  Besides, I was talking about what I, personally, hope.  I don't
claim to know what you hope with regard to the interpretation of my comments,
and I'm not going to tell you what you ought to hope.  I see no irony here.

>Even with the unnecessary "certainly", your sentence is much
>preferable to "Hopefully, you don't interpret...", don't
>you think?

Yes, especially since the latter doesn't say the same thing.

(And, while I'm glad that you were already certain of my feelings on this
 matter, others might have lacked your advantages.)


-- 
          David M. Tate            |"The man who hath no music in himself
     dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu       | Nor is not moved by concord of sweet sound
  A poem should be dumb, / As old  | Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils
 medallions to the thumb.-MacLeish | 	Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice", A.V
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english