I cannot guarantee that today’s subject really has to do with Ray Moose. It’s not his style, really. But this particular bit of grammatical ignorance has bugged me more and more as time goes by, not least because it has taken absolutely everyone in. To my knowledge, I am the only person on the planet who understands this issue.
Take this sentence: “Hopefully we’ll see you at Christmas.” According to a consensus of all school marms and grammatical gurus, that sentence is incorrect. Because “hopefully” is an adverb, it should modify and adjective or a verb; there’s no adjective here, so it has to modify the verb; but the sentence does not really mean that we will see you at Christmas in a hopeful manner. Quod absurdum est. Therefore the sentence is ungrammatical.
That, at least, is what everyone says but me. Here is the truth of the matter: in that example, “hopefully” modifies neither adjective nor verb but the very saying of the sentence. It means that “we’ll see you at Christmas” is said in a hopeful manner.
My, you should have heard the howls of laughter that greeted me the first time I propounded this simple insight. A den of grammatical jackals, it was!
There can be no question that English speakers could use a word that way if we wanted it to. The issue is whether we have a convention of using adverbs that way. Were there not some strange blockage in the brain caused by fluoride in the water that prevents people from applying logic to grammar, I think the example of “hopefully” above would prove the case all by itself: there is this convention because that is the obvious meaning of the sentence. Given the present situation (and thank goodness my house is on a well), the only remedy is to multiply such examples until doubt becomes not simply unreasonable but unpardonable.
Here goes example number one: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Raise your hand if you think the sentence means, “I don’t give a damn in a frank manner.” Anyone? Any takers? No?
OK, then consider the possibility that the sentence means that “I don’t give a damn” is spoken in a frank manner. And remember that this construction is exactly parallel to the example of “hopefully” given above.
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3 comments:
Happily, you aren't as alone as you thought. I would also have thought that there were few people on your side. But thankfully, there are many people who see the light and agree, both as to the explanation of such adverbs, and in particular as to the legitimacy of the use of "hopefully."
See these websites for a few examples:
http://www.bartleby.com/68/90/5390.html
http://www.bartleby.com/68/33/3033.html
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0160.html
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/adverbs/sentadvb.htm
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hop2.htm
Regrettably, most grammarians don't seem to care much for logic, but just for aesthetics, for which they often have a poor sense.
Wowsers. I'm really, really blown away. I never thought I would see common sense on this question--and certainly not from anyone with authoritative oomph!
I've been thinking about this sort of sentance for a while, too- and I was wondering whether it's even a correct contruction. I usually find myself correcting it to "I hope that..." or something, at least in my head. Is that a grammatical scruple?
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