17/8/17 Hopefully or Fortunately?

Hopefully or Fortunately

Use of hopefully to mean “it is hoped” (rather than “in a hopeful manner”) is widespread, even in legal writing. It is defensible as a sentence adverb similar to fortunately and certainly <fortunately, the jury agreed with us

[which doesn’t mean that the jury agreed in a fortunate manner]>. But hopefully used this way has been condemned for so long that writers use it at their peril. Its use is a distraction – and careful writers avoid distractions.

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