There's always hope(fully)

How many times today have you used the word hopefully? Hopefully, it won't rain today. I'll be home at 6, hopefully. Hopefully, I'll get that raise I've been wanting. Hopefully, our team will win.

If you uttered any sentences using this popular adverb in this fashion, you're wrong! Or at least that's what some grammarians would insist. "When Words Collide," the excellent book on grammar and usage that I use in my writing class, calls hopefully "possibly the single most abused word in our language." "When Words Collide" goes on to explain that most of the misuse of hopefully occurs when people use it to mean "it is hoped" or "let us hope," and that's incorrect, the book proclaims.

Hopefully is an adverb that is intended to describe how a subject feels – hopeful. So, when used properly, hopefully means "with hope" or "in a hopeful manner." A proper usage would be, "Hopefully, the underdogs took to the field, looking for a win."

But not everyone agrees with Lauren Kessler and Duncan McDonald, the authors of "When Words Collide." Patricia T. O'Conner, who wrote the popular "Woe Is I," says it's "hopeless to resist the evolution of hopefully." Go ahead and use it to mean "it is hoped" or "let us hope," O'Conner breezily advises her readers. Her point is that language is always changing and we must accept that. Those who think otherwise are derided by O'Conner as sticklers and purists.

O'Conner – whose book I like – is certainly right about the evolving nature of language and it's likely that the misuse of hopefully is now permanent. But these conflicting opinions regarding hopefully touch on the broader, ongoing issue of whether changes in the language should be accepted with little more than some feeble grumbling from a few blue-haired malcontents who read the Oxford dictionary for fun.

Should language change slowly, like the wording of the Constitution, or should it be treated like tabloid copy, subject to whims and splashy fads that change daily? I prefer the glacial approach, though I also try not to be snobbish about it.

As is often the case, the difference between writing and speaking correctly is a matter of first becoming aware of the correct way and then focusing on adhering to it. Since becoming aware of the proper use of hopefully, I've adjusted my speaking and writing accordingly. Like a person trying to stop swearing, I commit the occasional slip-up, but I use the word correctly most of the time now, and when I really want to say "it is hoped," I say that. At least I hope I do.