…How Language Is Like Fashion: The Case of 'Hopefully'.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Jesse already linked to the first of these stories, but thought I'd pair them up.
I always thought there washn't a lot to the case against hopefully. Anyone in his right mind could tell that when someone said, "Hopefully, the sun will rise again tomorrow," that the adverb referred to the speaker's (hopeful) anticipation, not the sun's. But one of the instances cited in the first article is not so trivial. Begging the question is a logical fallacy (it means using the premise of your proposition as proof of that same proposition). People who say that something "begs the question" clearly do not know this and their use of the phrase thereby comes off as both ignorant and pretentious (no mean feat).
I always thought there washn't a lot to the case against hopefully. Anyone in his right mind could tell that when someone said, "Hopefully, the sun will rise again tomorrow," that the adverb referred to the speaker's (hopeful) anticipation, not the sun's. But one of the instances cited in the first article is not so trivial. Begging the question is a logical fallacy (it means using the premise of your proposition as proof of that same proposition). People who say that something "begs the question" clearly do not know this and their use of the phrase thereby comes off as both ignorant and pretentious (no mean feat).
For the longest time, I used to mix purposely and purposefully. Then I grew up :)
ReplyDelete