Skim a few style books and language Web sites and you'll find umpteen experts berating common but less-than-accurate uses of hopefully and unfortunately. Those lessons are generally well explained. So today I'll address an adverb that is often misused but somehow manages to stay largely under the radar: momentarily.
Something that is momentary is temporary, fleeting, impermanent. It follows, then, that to do something "momentarily" should mean to do it for only a short period, or "for a moment."
Yet you'll often hear momentarily used to mean "in a moment," or soon. The effect of using "for a moment" where "in a moment" belongs can be unintentionally comic:
In the first sentence, the caring doctor offers hope; in the second, he's a callous clock-watcher.
So what's the right word to use when "in a moment" is the meaning you want? Maybe the best bet is to skip those tricky -ly adverbs and just say "soon."
© 2009 by AnnaLisa Michalski