regretful; regrettable.
Errors made are “regrettable”; the people who have made them should be “regretful.”
The most common error is to misuse “regretful” for “regrettable,” especially in the adverbial forms — e.g.:
o “Yet regretfully [read ‘regrettably’], there may be less than full understanding that MARTA’s rail-service areas are really a function of trip volume densities and urban economics.” Ray Magliozzi & Tom Magliozzi, “Is MARTA Just a Downtown Train?” Atlanta J.-Const., 4 Mar. 1992, at A14.
o “Regretfully [read ‘Regrettably’], the articles reflect a failure of contemporary liberalism and progressive politics.” Mark H. Hornung, “Don’t Argue with GOP, U. of C. Success,” Chicago Sun-Times, 10 Nov. 1993, at 49.
Language-Change Index — “regretfully” misused for “regrettably”: Stage 4.
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Quotation of the Day: “If ye would speake as the best and wisest do, ye must be conversant where the best and wisest are: but if you be borne or brought ip in a rude contrie, ye shall not chose but speake rudelie: the rudest man of all knoweth this to be trewe.” Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster (1570), in Classics in Composition 31, 32 (Donald E. Hayden ed., 1969).
