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Vol. 7, No. 10
October 2004

IN THIS ISSUE:
WE CAN ONLY HOPE
~~CLASS SCHEDULE~~
~~SPECIAL OFFER~~
ROOTS: "weird"
PUNCTUATION POINTER: the period/full stop
~~NEWSLINKS~~
QUOTATION

WE CAN ONLY HOPE
By Paula Guran

One of the more intensely fought battles in the War of Proper Language has been over the use of hopefully as a sentence adverb (as in "Hopefully, the answer will be correct" -- meaning "it is to be hoped that the answer will be correct"). The clash originally included other -ly adverbs, but, as R.W. Burchfield put it in THE NEW FOWLERS MODERN ENGLISH USAGE, "Suddenly, round the end of the 1960s, and with unprecedented venom, a dunce's cap was placed on the head of anyone who used just one of them -- hopefully -- as a sentence adverb."

The venom was spit in response to a great burgeoning of hopefully use in the early 1960s. One can imagine that language purists (and everyone else) felt they had lost control over a great many matters in that era, so perhaps this accounts for them clinging so fervently to the "proper" use of hopefully.

Admittedly, if we delve deeply into grammar (and the pile of reference books at our disposal) we can discover reasons (involving, for instance, "style disjuncts" and "attitudinal disjuncts") other than our theory of reaction to revolutionary times. But the more prevalent (and more decipherable) arguments go back to the meaning of the word hopefully.

Generally, there are few quibbles with similar -ly words being used as sentence adverbs. Rhett Butler was correct, for example, in saying, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." These sentence adverbs quite usefully condense a full comment into one word. Rhett Butler was saying: "To speak in a frank manner, my dear, I don't give a damn."

There's no problem with using hopefully to mean "in a hopeful manner." (Robert Louis Stevenson: "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.") This is the traditional connotation and has been accepted since the 17th century.

In the 20th century we started using hopefully to mean "I hope" or "it is to be hoped" -- expressing what we would like to happen. Most dictionaries accept this meaning as do most English speakers, so one can see the logic in using hopefully in the disputed manner (Hopefully, the war will soon be over meaning It is hoped the war will end soon_.)

But language has little to do with logic. Despite widespread acceptance of the meaning, acknowledgment that other -ly adverbs can be used in this way, and experts consenting to the usage -- hopefully remains what language expert William Safire called "the litmus test to determine whether one is a language snob or a language slob." THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY agrees, with some regret, that "specific use of hopefully in this way has become a shibboleth."

To avoid reproach, even if misguided, we are still cautioned that using hopefully as a sentence adverb should be avoided in formal writing. Beyond this fear of approbation is a nagging feeling that hopefully is somehow unattractive. Mercifully, clearly, even unfortunately have élan; actually and frankly seem confident; hopefully remains a graceless, if optimistic, wallflower of a word.

ROOTS
"weird"

"No one needs to be told about what is weird." -- Thomas Ligotti, the opening sentence of "Noctuary"

Nowadays "weird" is more or less synonymous with "eerie" (which MERRIAM-WEBSTER says "suggests an uneasy or fearful consciousness that mysterious and malign powers are at work") and "uncanny" ("implies disquieting strangeness or mysteriousness"). Weird can mean "mysteriously strange or fantastic," connote an "unearthly or supernatural strangeness," or it may emphasize oddity.

In Old English, weird was a noun ("wyrd") that meant "fate." It came from the etymological base *wer meaning "that which comes about," "twist," or "turn." This is its meaning, for instance, in "Beowulf" ("Gaetha wyrd swa hio scel." = "Fate goes ever as it will.") There was also an Old English adage referring to "me thaet wyrd gewaef" ("fate wove me that destiny"), which may have been something of a pun. Word play relating wyrd with weaving was common in Anglo-Saxon literature. Wyrd, weorthan ("to become"; worth, i was once used as a verb meaning "become") and waefan ("to weave") are probably all related to *wer. (As is the Latin vertere, our source of convert, invert, pervert, revert, verse, vertigo, etc.) The idea that deities wove our lives is found in many mythologies. In Greek mythology they were spinners, the Morai ("Fates"): Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured it, and Atropos cut the thread ending life. The Romans called them the Parcae (or the Fatae) and named them Nona, Decuma, and Morta. In Norse belief, there were the Norns -- Urd or Urth, who held the past; Verthandi, the present; and Skuld, who wove the future. (Spellings of these names vary.) Urd is a version of Wyrd. Wyrd was also said to have been the mother of the Norns or even a single deity who embodied all three of the Norns in one.

The Norns were also known as the Wyrd Sisters. By 1400, in English wyrd had become the noun weird and could be used as an adjective -- but only with the word "sister," and retained the meaning "fate" as in "having the power to control another's fate." Weird was commonly used in Scotland to mean "witch" and this use in England was not unknown. (Chaucer used it.) A Scottish manuscript on the Trojan War dating from 1400 has "Vperis said sche was, I trow, A werde-sister..." ("Paris said she was, I vow, a weird sister...") There are other recorded uses before Shakespeare's MACBETH (first performed in 1605 or 1606 after James I (James IV of Scotland) ascended to the throne in 1603. After Shakespeare used the term "weird sisters" in the Scottish tragedy, its use slowly expanded to other contexts.

Our modern sense of weird, implying strangeness evidently came about some time in the 19th century. Webster's 1828 Dictionary lists weird as "a. Skilled in witchcraft. [Not in use.]" By the 1919 edition, the second definition of the adjective form reads: "Of or pertaining to witchcraft; caused by, or suggesting, magical influence; supernatural; unearthly; wild; as, a weird appearance, look, sound, etc."

John Ayto attributes our modern meaning of weird to "semantic liberties" taken with Shakespeare's usage. It's conjecture on our part, but it seems logical to make a connection between those liberties and the Shakespeare Revival of 1730-1860. During this period, the playwright was elevated to sublime dramatic status. Many eighteenth-century critics considered his supernatural plays as his most significant achievement as they were considered to be the most imaginative.

PUNCTUATION POINTERS
The Period or Full Stop [.]

In most English-speaking countries this most basic of punctuation marks is called a full stop. In North America, the older name, period, is still used. They are used to:

* Mark the end of a statement.

* Mark abbreviations. (If an abbreviation comes before the very end of a sentence taking a period/stop, the dot is not used twice:
---- The curtain rises at 8:15 p.m.

* Many modern abbreviations, especially in the names of companies, bureaus, organizations, etc., do not use a period:
---- Tenet directed the CIA under President Clinton and President Bush before resigning.

* In British English, abbreviations for countries and other political entities do not need a full stop.
---- Chidgey's first novel won the Betty Trask Award in the UK.

* In American English the period is traditionally used in country abbreviations, especially with U.S., but this use may be declining.

* In British English there is no full stop after abbreviations that include the final letter of the abbreviated word.
---- Mrs Thatcher refused to call off the conference.
---- Prof Cliff Bowman and Dr Shailendra Vyakarnum spoke at the meeting.

* American English uses a period after most titles.
---- Mrs. Thatcher refused to call off the conference.
---- Prof. Cliff Bowman and Dr. Shailendra Vyakarnum spoke at the meeting.

* Neither British nor American English uses full stops for acronyms like AIDS or NATO.

* The standard American reference, _Chicago Manual of Style_ says a period is normally used after the initial. -- M. Night Shyamalan -- J.R.R. Tolkien -- C.S. Lewis * We observe some British use drops the stop after a single middle initial (M Night Shyamalan, but other styles favor retaining it. Multiple initials tend to lose the stops (CS Lewis), but this, too, is not always the case.

* American usage appears to moving (at least journalistically) toward single initials with a period (M. Night Shyamalan), but without periods for multiple initials (JRR Tolkien).

QUOTATION:

"Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." -- Charles Mingus, musician and composer (1922-1979)

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