"Hopefully"

It is actually an adaption of the common German word "hoffentlich" -- probably via Yiddish

Since the 1960s there has been a persistent outcry from those offended by the way ‘hopefully’ is now used. Take the sentence: ‘Hopefully the rain will stop by Saturday.’ ‘No! No!,’ say the protesters, ‘“Hopefully” is an adjunct word and by attaching it to rain means it’s the rain that is hoping.’

That protest may have once held water, but not anymore. English is a living language (a river not a lake) and it has flowed on to where ‘hopefully’ is now treated as a disjunct, not an adjunct. That is, it is no longer attached to the word(s) it precedes, but to the speaker.

 Starting in the 1960s and rapidly gathering strength in the decades that followed ‘hopefully’ joined a long list of similar words: ‘frankly’, “thankfully”, luckily’ and many others.

Why the outcry? Possibly because the shift happened fairly quickly; possibly because it came out of America (and we are very ready to be dubious about American usage).

Perhaps the outrage will now start to slowly simmer down (and we can move on to worrying about real language problems).

https://spectator.com.au/2022/06/language-15/

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http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

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https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

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