Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 3 down vote favorite
1

Is it "more" correct to say "Luckily for me" or "Lucky for me"? I found a few sites that discussed this (including m-w.com, under the rubric "hopefully") but I'm still not sure if one is specifically right or wrong, or both are acceptable. (Or one is right, while the other is acceptable using colloquial language.)

share|improve this question
Lucky for me is usually just short for it was lucky for me. – Jon Purdy Jan 27 '11 at 21:11

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

Both are correct. Lucky for me is simply shortened, which is grammatically fine.

Lucky for me is an elliptic form of It was lucky for me. E.g:

[It was] lucky for me [that] I saw the sniper before he saw me.

Luckily for me is a complete adverbial phrase, and not truncated:

Luckily for me, I saw the sniper before he saw me.

Lucky for me seems to be about as popular as luckily for me, according to Ngrams:

share|improve this answer
+1 for using "elliptical" – KitFox♦ Sep 3 '11 at 18:31
This is incorrect. If you look at the frequency for the period 1990-2010 they are about the same ngrams.googlelabs.com/… – Theta30 Sep 3 '11 at 20:55
As a general rule, if you want to study the present usage, I advise you to set the Ngrams from last decades, not from 1800 – Theta30 Sep 3 '11 at 20:58
I fixed it; thanks a lot for checking that! – Daniel δ Sep 3 '11 at 21:38
up vote 1 down vote

Luckily, as it's an adverb. Compare it to 'happily'. You wouldn't say:

Happy for me, I met my long-lost brother the other day.

share|improve this answer
But you would say "he is happy for me". And you would say "that is lucky for me". So it really just depends on the syntactic context, rather than a rule for all situations. – Kosmonaut Jan 27 '11 at 20:31
1  
I didn't say it was a rule, I just said that, given the choice of the two examples, 'luckily' was the correct one. – user3444 Jan 27 '11 at 20:35
@ElendilTheTall: That's fine — except with no context given, it is impossible to tell which one is correct. – Kosmonaut Jan 27 '11 at 21:10
1  
The context is implied by the choice, I think, i.e. when do you use luckily. I realise you could read it either way, but I am just intuitively incisive like that ;) – user3444 Jan 27 '11 at 21:19
The key is, at least to make it proper, to use the non-adverbial form, you have to add "it is", which makes it an adjective. "Luckily" is the correct form. – Chris B. Behrens Jan 28 '11 at 16:15

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.