Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
hopefully (adv.)
is a sentence adverb that has raised the hackles of some conservatives, but probably its overuse has made most of the trouble; it had been a perfectly good sentence adverb for generations before the recent objections were heard. Those who don’t like it usually urge that I hope that or It is hoped that be used instead, but hopefully is in fact Standard, just as are most other sentence adverbs (which see).
