From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Sun Jun 22 2003 - 23:36:42 MDT
From: "Spike" <spike66@attbi.com>
> Hey cool, language experts to whom I can address my
> pet peeves and questions! What part of speech is it
> when someone starts a sentence with the word "hopefully"?
> It appears to be an adverb, but I cannot figure out how
> to diagram any sentence which starts with that word.
> I am driven to distraction when some silly prole
> says "Hopefully yakkity yak and bla bla." How should
> it be correctly phrased? Should it be "I am speaking
> in a hopeful or optimistic manner when I say yakkity yak
> and bla bla?"
If you mean when people say, "Hopefully, the sun will shine tomorrow?" ...
when they mean "I hope the sun will shine tomorrow ..." or "We hope the sun
will shine tomorrow ..." (or "It is hoped the sun will shine tomorrow..."
for the passive voice.)
As a non-native speaker I learned much of my English going between grammar
books and comic books (no wonder I still get perplexed at times!). And,
yet, I don't think I get as confused as many native-born speakers. I know
language evolves and changes, but when I *consistently* see people write
"alot" for "a lot," and say "between you and I" for "between you and me" ...
I wonder how and what they're teaching in school these days. When my
children were younger they would occasionally bring home notes from
*teachers* who misspelled words and didn't seem to know their possessives
very well. I wonder if prepositional phrases are taught anymore ...?
Olga
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