Page 143 - Perfect English Grammar: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking
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speaking world for centuries. You would be well within your rights to use it
whenever you please.
There’s just one problem: because the utterly incorrect advice has spread so
far for so long, if you use hopefully at the beginning of a sentence, you are likely
to draw attention to that instead of to your overall writing. Remember, we want
people to focus on our message and not on the way we deliver it.
Therefore, avoid using hopefully as a sentence adverb for now. Hopefully, in
a hundred years or so the myth about hopefully will have vanished and we will
be able to use it without worrying about being criticized by well-meaning but
wrong people.
For advice on avoiding adverb overuse, see section 17.1, Avoiding Adverbs.
