Editing Dangling modifier (section)

=== Usage of "hopefully" ===
{{main|Hopefully}}
Since about the 1960s, controversy has arisen over the proper usage of the adverb ''hopefully''.<ref>Kahn, John Ellison and Robert Ilson, Eds. ''The Right Word at the Right Time: A Guide to the English Language and How to Use It'', pp. 27–29. London: The Reader's Digest Association Limited, 1985. {{ISBN|0-276-38439-3}}.</ref> Some grammarians object to constructions such as "Hopefully, the sun will be shining tomorrow".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20201026041811/http://www.emory.edu/marketing/docs/creative_group/Style%20Manual.pdf Emory University Style Manual and Services Guide] p. 19</ref> Their complaint is that the term "hopefully" is understood as the manner in which the sun will shine if read literally, with the suggested modification "I hope the sun will shine tomorrow" if it is the speaker that is full of hope. "Hopefully" used in this way is a [[disjunct (linguistics)|disjunct]] ([[cf.]] "admittedly", "mercifully", "oddly"). Disjuncts (also called sentence adverbs) are useful in [[colloquial]] speech for the concision they permit.

<blockquote>
No other word in English expresses that thought. In a single word we can say it is regrettable that (''regrettably'') or it is fortunate that (''fortunately'') or it is lucky that (''luckily''), and it would be comforting if there were such a word as ''hopably'' or, as suggested by Follett, ''hopingly'', but there isn't. [...] In this instance nothing is to be lost – the word would not be destroyed in its primary meaning – and a useful, nay necessary term is to be gained.<ref>Bernstein, Theodore M. ''Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins'', p. 51. The Noonday Press, New York, 1971. {{ISBN|0-374-52315-0}}.</ref>
</blockquote>

What had been expressed in lengthy adverbial constructions, such as "it is regrettable that ..". or "it is fortunate that .."., had of course always been shortened to the adverbs "regrettably" or "fortunately". [[Bill Bryson]] says, "those writers who scrupulously avoid 'hopefully' in such constructions do not hesitate to use at least a dozen other words – 'apparently', 'presumably', 'happily', 'sadly', 'mercifully', 'thankfully', and so on – in precisely the same way".<ref>''Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words'', Bill Bryson, p. 99, Broadway Books, New York, 2002, {{ISBN|0-7679-1043-5}}</ref><!-- NOTE: a chunk of text was moved to Talk page June 2018 due to six-year old dubious flags -->

Merriam-Webster gives a usage note on its entry for "hopefully"; the editors point out that the disjunct sense of the word dates to the early 18th century and has been in widespread use since at least the 1930s. Objection to this sense of the word, they state, became widespread only in the 1960s. The Merriam Webster editors maintain that this usage is "entirely standard".<ref>"hopefully." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2007. http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=hopefully {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929165541/http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=hopefully |date=2007-09-29 }} (15 Aug. 2007).</ref>

There are similar complications with the term "doubtless" or "doubtlessly". "Alex doubtlessly ran out of gas" either means Alex was doubtless when he ran out of gas, or the speaker is doubtless in declaring that Alex ran out of gas.