Healthy/Healthful 1-15-04

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="042d05a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Big Ring Media Team, Inc.</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Big Ring Media Team, Inc."><B>home</B></A></div> <bR> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="043d2123.jpg"> <div> Click on this link to return to <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Word Watch by Subject">Word Watch by Subject</A>.</div> <div> Click on this link to go to <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Word Watch by Date">Word Watch by Date</A>.</div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Healthy/Healthful 1-15-04</I></div> <div> We've accepted the apparent misuse of “hopefully” and “thankfully:”</div> <div> “Hopefully, the value of our new widget design will help us capture additional market share.”</div> <div> “Thankfully, our sales staff understands the intrinsic advantages of this new design and will be able to communicate those advantages to clients.”</div> <div> In fact we question whether this is misuse at all.</div> <div> There's no doubt, however, that “healthy” is misused on the Post<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Symbol" >Ò</FONT> Honey Nut Shredded Wheat cereal box. They mean to say that the cereal is healthful, that it promotes good health. Consumers who make Shredded Wheat part of a good diet may indeed be healthy, but the cereal itself is healthful.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0472cac0.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="172" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Post wanted to protect this particular bit of fractured English, so they have secured a trademark for the phrase. To lay claim to even more bad usage, they have also trade marked a name for this line of cereals: “Healthy Classics.”</div> <div> Hopefully, the misuse will stop here. Regretfully, we fear it will go on. Thankfully, English is a resilient language and can endure such abuse.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>