Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
Hi, I've been having trouble coming up with a word, and I heard about this website when seeking help from a friend, so I figured I'd ask here.
To provide a little context - I live in San Diego but I go to school back east. The skiway near my school was supposed to open early, so I thought I'd stay an extra week and get some skiing in, but the big snowstorm we were supposed to get didn't come, and so the opening date kept getting pushed back. In describing this in a letter to a friend, I'd like to use the following sentence:
"Each day I hoped more ______ly that it would begin to snow."
...the adverb conveying that the hope was less likely to be realized each day.
"Fancifully" and "wistfully" are the closest I could think of, but I don't think they're quite accurate. It's not some fantastic, pipe-dream type of hope, it's just less...realistic?
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
Nick
I'm thinking of optimistically. As you say, snowfall is less likely with each passing day, and so your optimism must grow accordingly. On the other side of the emotion scale, you could use anxiously. And if you like to ski, you should say that you have a half-pipe dream type of hope. Or maybe we've coined a new expression: A half-pipe dream is smaller than a pipe dream, but just as unrealistic? 🙂
“Half-pipe dream†would work well if you were a surfer and not a skier…
How about “Each day I hoped against hope that it would begin to snow.â€
OED says it's the “hope without expectation of obtainment.†I know that doesn't convey the incremental dissipation of hope, but I'm still thinking.
Good luck with the snow!!!
I had almost forgotten that a half-pipe could also refer to a wave in surfing. Oddly, I can't find an online dictionary that refers to surfing, only skis, snowboards, skateboards, and bikes! What's up with that?
An incremental dissipation of hope. Let's see.
With each passing day my hope for snow slowly melted.
Each day I hoped more flakily that it would begin to snow.
Haha, half-pipe dream, I love it 😀
I figured out a way to reword it, lest some appropriate adverb rear its head:
"Each day I clung to the increasingly remote hope that it would begin to snow."
Unfortunately remote doesn't work as an adverb - maybe the problem with the original sentence is that the adverb reflects on the nature of the subject performing the action and not the nature of the action itself?
It's interesting that we hear "I dreamt more vividly each night," and easily understand that "vividly" applies to the dream, not to the subject, but when we hear "I hoped more optimistically each night," we understand "optimistic" as describing the emotion of the person hoping, not the emotional quality of the hope itself (at least I do, maybe I'm weird or something :P) - e.g. I hoped more optimistically each night that my father would recover from surgery," depending on which you attribute the adverb to, could either mean that you were more optimistic each night because he was getting better, or that it took more optimism to hope each night because he wasn't, and I tend to think of the former rather than the latter when I hear that sentence.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)