Predictably, the language changes

It's the predictably in the headline above that makes my point.

Predictably is what grammarians call a sentence adverb, meaning that instead of modifying another adverb or an adjective or a verb, it modifies the whole sentence.

So why can't hopefully make the smooth transfer in status as a sentence adverb? So many other adverbs have made it. For example, sentences roll trippingly off the tongue even though they begin with actually, apparently, basically, clearly, confidentially, evidently, fortunately, and so on.

One critic, who otherwise -- hopefully -- accepts sentence adverbs such as seriously and ultimately, calls such use of hopefully "slack-jawed, common, sleazy."

Others have also tried to hold the line, which has crumbled under fire from almost all sides. Strunk and White said using hopefully as a sentence adverb offends the ears of those "who do not like to see words dulled or eroded."

But the world spins 'round and 'round.

My friend Walter, who is, like me, fascinated by our language, just today emailed me to say that he long ago gave up on hopefully the way it was once used.

Alas! Even the staid and august AP Stylebook has turned with the tide. The word mavens at the Associated Press said a decade ago (see my old copy of the AP Stylebook above) that it was wrong to write "Hopefully, we will complete our work in June."

Two years ago those AP experts tweeted: "We now support the modern usage of hopefully." The AP has gotten hip in more ways than one.

However -- and this is a big however -- if you are a careful writer, it's probably not wise just yet to go around sprinkling hopefully hither and thither at the beginning of your sentences. Among those who still caution against it is The New York Times. The Great Gray Lady will allow it, but notes primly that such use of hopefully is taking the chance of offending some of the paper's old-school readers.

But I think all is definitely lost in this particular battle. In another generation, no one will even remember that prissy time long ago when hopefully was frowned on as a sentence adverb.

Perhaps we can turn an eye ... dare I say hopefully? ... towards holding the line against another of my friend Walter's pet peeves: using a modifier with unique." Certainly, that's worth fighting for. Or has that battle been lost, too?

Hopefully not.

Commonality

I think Oscar Pistorius might affect us all more than we realize. His trial is introducing the English-speaking world to the South African accent in a major way.

The educated South African pronunciation we're hearing from the judges and lawyers and witnesses in the trial is definitely a precise version of our common tongue, but it occasionally employs emphasis, idiom and cultural custom that don't always fall easy on our American ears.

It's not British English, nor Australian English. Neither is it our own American English.

It's distinctly the English of South Africa.

This broadening of the American experience started with radio. With a flip of a switch (and as soon as the tubes warmed up) we could listen to people from New York and Los Angeles and Chicago, and even Milwaukee (whence comes H.V. Kaltenborn, an early CBS news analyst with a precise and imposing voice).

And so we all slowly and steadily began to talk more or less alike.

Television and film furthered the changes in the American accent. Satellites made us aware that English was spoken quite differently depending on where in the world one is.

Now the "trial of the century" in South Africa is adding a healthy dose of that nation's English to the mix -- adding to what we heard in the recent celebrations of the life of Nelson Mandela.

And it's not only the accents that enrich us. There is also the matter of the words we hear and then adopt.

(We'll pause here while you throw another shrimp on the barbie [Australia] or just do your own thing [Mandingo via Ralph Waldo Emerson].)

I am reminded of what James Nicoll said back when the global Internet was just becoming really useful in connecting us. Nicoll is well-known in the Usenet community and writes and blogs. He wrote:

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

I'm not endorsing language-based violence verbal or physical, but I welcome the enrichment of our common speech. Our language is alive and well.

Lucky us

The snow was swirling yesterday afternoon outside my 9th-floor apartment. Inside, I was reading a charming book lent to me by my nephew's wife.

"Dick's Book: Reflections of a Farmer" is by Samuel Dick Harris, who is my nephew's wife's uncle, her mother's brother. He opens his book with stories about his life growing up on a farm in Spotsylvania County.

As the snow fell on a cold March afternoon in 2014, I came upon this passage describing a snowstorm that happened two years before I was born:

Anyone that lived in central Virginia in January of 1940 will never forget the snow that started on January 24th at around three or four o'clock in the afternoon. By bedtime, it was several inches deep and still coming down hard. When we got up the next morning, it had stopped snowing. You couldn't see out the back porch, for the snow was plastered all over the screen. When the screen door to the outside steps for the back porch was finally pried open, one looked out on a world buried in snow. Some people said it was three feet. I think twenty to twenty-four inches was more accurate. It was difficult to tell because the wind blew so hard and the snow drifted so badly. It totally covered up much of the fences. Of course, the roads were blocked. We didn't go to school for two weeks. The milking, feeding and watering of the cattle and chickens took all day. We had some wood stacked on the back porch for our heating and cooking. Until the wind stopped, it was useless to dig out a path, as it would soon drift full behind you. After the first day, it got extremely cold and set records that still hold until this day. It went below zero degrees Fahrenheit every morning for five days, with one reading of minus twelve degrees Fahrenheit in Richmond....

Samuel Dick Harris also describes the first tractor his father bought for farm work, the coming of electricity to his rural home, the installation of indoor plumbing, hog-killing time and other tough work on the farm, and the joys of running barefoot all through the summer. His account is all the more delightful to read because of the straightforward, no-nonsense style in which he writes.

We've had snow in dribs and drabs this winter, but "Dick's Book" was a good reminder that we've had nothing to compare with the winter of 1940 -- so far.

It was a good book to spend an afternoon with on a snowy day and think about our good fortune, even in the winter of 2014.

Paging Mr. DeMille

When a snowstorm keeps you inside and all you have to play with is a cat and a camera, interesting things happen -- although the cat doesn't necessarily think so.

Endless February

Only three of us and our instructor showed up for fitness class at the JCC this morning.

It was actually more relaxed and informal -- and great fun.

I came in from Northside Richmond, where there was a crust of frozen rain on top of about 4 inches of snow. When I woke up this morning at 8 a.m., I looked out of my 9th-floor window and the roads were a mess. But by 10 a.m., the plows had been at work and the roads were fairly clear.

So I decided to go to class.

It took a few minutes to clear the snow from my car windows. It was mostly fluffy and brushed off easily.

On the way to the JCC on Monument Avenue I had no problems, even on neighborhood streets. No sliding. No slipping. And very few other drivers on the road.

When I met up with the class, it was interesting to learn about snow around their homes. Amounts varied. Our Thursday instructor lives near the University of Richmond. The snow fell more heavily there, about 6 inches. In the far West End, the snow was even heavier, with one report saying 7 inches.

February has been tough in Richmond this year. Usually we might get one big snowfall per season -- and big by Richmond standards is as little as 4 to 6 inches. This February alone, Richmond has already had three of what the TV forecasters call "snow events."

It's getting old. And it's supposed to snow again tonight.

The late Times-Dispatch columnist Charles McDowell once wrote in his annual tirade about this cursed month: "February lacks the new hopefulness of January, the windy excitement of March, the sunny promise of April. February depresses. It litters the landscape with dirty, clinging snow. It sabotages the automobile battery. It brings man into bitter conflict with his furnace."

Charlie nailed it. February is the wicked witch of months. The shortest month is the cruelest. And it seems longer than the Mesozoic Era.

The best thing you can say about this February is that there are only 15 more days before we can rip it off of the calendar.

And by the time summer's hurricane season rolls around, we'll have forgotten all about it.

Santa's name was Brian

Yes, there is a Santa.

And one of his names is Brian.

I was hosting a holiday dinner last night for a few of my family, five adults and two young children. This year we went to Extra Billy's on West Broad Street. We had gnawed the baby back ribs to the bone and were sitting back from the table to continue talking and catching up.

(I host this dinner every year out of love as well as out of enlightened self-interest. These are the relatives who invite me to share their Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner every year. They make sure I'm not eating a turkey sandwich alone in my apartment on these special holidays.)

Our waitress, who had given us special attention during our meal, came our way with the check in her hand and tears in her eyes. We discovered she was overcome by the kindness of a perfect stranger who had already picked up the tab for our entire meal.

She said the bill was paid by "a secret Santa."

We speculated madly among ourselves for a few minutes. Who could it have been?

A few minutes later we had our answer. The waitress brought Brian, who appeared to be coming along reluctantly, from the area near the bar. He was our secret Santa.

Brian said he had watched as we enjoyed what was clearly a special occasion and decided to give us a Christmas present. He choked up a bit but recovered quickly as he explained.

We invited Brian to sit and chat. He stayed for a few minutes, clearly captivated by my niece's two young children. And then with hugs all around and much wishing of "Merry Christmas," he left to rejoin his friends.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I was dumbstruck.

Brian, a perfect stranger, had no reason to pick up our tab at all. Except that he was feeling the Christmas spirit in a big way.

I think I can speak for all of us at the table last night -- Mike, Becky, Terry, James, Milagros, Carlos, and me.

We're all feeling the Christmas spirit a little bit more now.

Broken news

My University of Richmond journalism professor, Joe Nettles, introduced us to the concept of making difficult news decisions.

He began by asking us which of the following stories should be the lead in the morning newspaper:

(A) Pope Elopes.

(B) Sun Rises in the West

(C) Quake Dumps California into the Ocean

They're all preposterous. But there's really only one choice. The biggest story is the one that affects the most people. I pick option (B). Such an occurrence would knock our entire conception of the universe for a loop.

That was almost always my criteria when I was in the decision-making game in WTVR TV's newsroom.

Sometimes, all things being equal on a slow news day, I might go for shock or titillation value -- as in option (A). At other times, option (C) might look best -- just think of the amazing visuals you'd have in a live report from the Reno oceanfront.

But 99 percent of the time, I stuck by my guns: How many people does this story affect?

I must have been doing something right. WTVR's news broadcasts were the most-watched in Central Virginia during my tenure.

In the 1960s and 70s, management mostly left our news department alone to do its own thing. In fact, there was a firewall of sorts between the news department and management/sales. The station didn't make any big profits from news. Prestige, instead, was the payoff.

That, clearly, has changed dramatically since this very day in 1977 when I got out of the business.

Nowadays, local TV newscasts -- and network newscasts, too, for that matter -- are heavily influenced by marketing and sales. Petty crime often shoots to the top of the newscast. A titillating story about a flash-in-the-pan celebrity who is famous for nothing more than being famous carries a lot of TV news weight. And video of a tool shed in flames -- if it's really good video -- can work its way to the top.

Back in the day, the possibility of a dusting of snow was covered during the weather segment. Now it's breaking news at the top of the broadcast. Even if it's only a 30 percent possibility.

I remember a seemingly endless telephone conversation with a woman who wanted us to cover an elementary-school pageant. "The children are so adorable," she kept telling me.

At the time I had three reporter/photographer crews out on the streets covering real news. My only other crew was editing a story for the next  newscast. I just couldn't spare anybody to cover her pageant.

"But you have to cover it," she told me. "It's news!"

I was fast becoming exasperated. "It's only news if I say it's news," I told her.

That's definitely an arrogant thing to say, I realized after we had hung up.

But when you come right down to it, that's why I spent four years in college and a decade in TV journalism: to know what a news story was when I saw it.

And that's why I'd have all my crews working on the story about the sun rising in the west.

But in today's TV news business, that children's pageant might still make it into the lineup.

Especially if the station were a co-sponsor of the pageant.

Heck, the pageant might even be introduced as breaking news.