Fun Stuff

Hopefully this will amuse you
The American author Jean Stafford once posted this sign on her back door:

"THE WORD 'HOPEFULLY' MUST NOT BE MISUSED ON THESE PREMISES. VIOLATORS WILL BE HUMILIATED."

(Jean Stafford, by David Roberts. St. Martin's Griffin, 2003, p. 364.)

She was trying to keep away fans and "droppers-in," but she was also making the age-old argument that "hopefully" is an adverb that should only be used to modify a verb. For example, in the sentence, "She looked hopefully out the window," "hopefully" modifies "looked."

However, attitudes have changed in the last 50 or 60 years. Jean Stafford might turn over in her grave, and some grammarians may grumble, but generally most people won't think any less of you if you say something like: "Hopefully it won't rain tomorrow." Saying "It is to be hoped that it won't rain tomorrow" would just sound silly and artificial.

Fear not; when working with me, humiliation will not ensue.

Give your verbs more muscle
Then again, adverbs should be used sparingly because they tend to weaken the impact, so another way to phrase the above sentence might be, "She stared out the window." Since "stared" is a stronger verb than "looked," it doesn't need an adverb to help it.

How to p*** off your editor
James Thurber recalled how Harold Ross complained about the overuse of words like "pretty" and "little," which he felt were weak and lazy:
"Once, to bedevil him, I used them both in a single sentence...: 'The building is pretty ugly and a little big for its surroundings.' After stumbling upon these deliberate oxymora, Ross poked his head into my office, made a pretty ugly sound with his tongue and lips, and withdrew."
(The Years with Ross, Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2000, p. 18)