Hopefully

When I was at school, I was taught that sentences like this were worthy only of those louts who took CSEs instead of "O" levels:

Hopefully, Uncle Albert will come.

Teachers would explain, in tones reminiscent of "Another Brick in the Wall", that the offending sentence, if it meant anything, meant that Uncle Albert would come with hope in his heart.

Like so many other grammar rules, this is, of course, nonsense. But it was only today that I asked myself exactly why it was nonsense. Let's change the sentence to

Unfortunately, Uncle Albert will come.

This obviously means "It is unfortunate that Uncle Albert will come," not "Uncle Albert came in an unfortunate manner." So why do some people insist that an initial "hopefully" can't mean "it is hoped that"? Is it the "full" part, I wonder? But we could still interpret it as "The prognosis is hopeful," couldn't we?

Let's consider a very different case:

Angrily, Sally left the room.

I propose that the only reason we ascribe the anger to Sally and not to the situation is that this is the only interpretation that makes sense. On the other hand, if we say

Sadly, Sally left the room.

is it Sally who is sad, or are we just talking about a sad situation? If the people who despise initial "hopefully" are correct, then only the former interpretation is possible, but common sense tells us both are plausible.

Hopefully, I'm not making an ass of myself here.