Why is "hopefully" treated so mercilessly? [closed]

Is the word "hopefully" unjustly treated? We don't like the sentence:

"Hopefully, my ship is just over the horizon and due in real soon now."

But we don't mind saying:

"Happily, the tree fell on that eyesore shed."

"Sadly, the swallows have not returned."

Why is "hopefully" so unwelcome at the adverb party?

ObJoke: From The New Yorker a few years ago, to illustrate proper use of "hopefully:"

Dad (shaving):   Ouch! Damn!
Son:             What's wrong?
Dad:             I cut my chin!
Son (hopefully): Off?

Solution 1:

I don't see anything wrong with the first example sentence using hopefully

"Hopefully, my ship is just over the horizon and due in real soon now."

In fact, I don't see why hopefully can't be used in place of any of the other adverbs in the other sentences mentioned.

IMHO, hopefully is welcome at all the adverb parties that I will be throwing.

-EDIT- To cite the related answer on this site about this usage of the word..

"It is prevalent enough to be considered correct"

Solution 2:

Actually, there is nothing at all wrong with it. The usually laconic NOAD devotes an entire usage note to it:

hopefully |ˈhōpfəlē| adverb 1 in a hopeful manner : he rode on hopefully. 2 [ sentence adverb ] it is to be hoped that : hopefully, it should be finished by next year.

USAGE The traditional sense of hopefully, ‘in a hopeful manner’ ( : he stared hopefully at the trophy), has been used since 1593. The first recorded use of hopefully as a sentence adverb, meaning ‘it is to be hoped that’ ( : hopefully, we'll see you tomorrow), appears in 1702 in the : Magnalia Christi Americana, written by Massachusetts theologian and writer Cotton Mather. This use of hopefully is now the most common one. [Emphasis Robusto] Sentence adverbs in general ( : frankly,: honestly,: regrettably,: seriously) are found in English since at least the 1600s, and their use has become common in recent decades. However, most traditionalists take the view that all sentence adverbs are inherently suspect. Although they concede that the battle over hopefully is lost on the popular front, they continue to withhold approval of its use as a sentence adverb. Attentive ears are particularly bothered when the sentence that follows does not match the promise of the introductory adverb, as when frankly is followed not by an expression of honesty but by a self-serving proclamation ( : frankly, I don't care if you go or not).

What NOAD politely calls "traditionalists" are the same people who fuss over non-issues like ending sentences with prepositions and the like. And if the word has been used in this sense for three centuries, one wonders how far back one needs to go to appeal to "tradition" of usage.