“Hi there, hope you’re well.”
asserted
you → hope → ?
How a thousand emails begin: a greeting plus well-wishing.
asserted
emails → begin → ?
Hope, the same verb, adorns countless Hallmark cards, the sentiment for imminent travellers, the sick and frail, the new parents.
asserted
Hope → adorn → travellers
We hope for the best.
asserted
We → hope → best
We half-hope or hope as much.
asserted
We → hope → ?
As a noun, hope comes in rays and glimmers.
asserted
hope → come → rays
We even hope against hope, as it springs eternal.
asserted
it → hope → hope
But what is hope, and does any dictionary have a hope in hell of telling us?
asserted
dictionary → have → us
A family friend is expecting her third son in March.
asserted
friend → expect → March
Sounds definite, doesn’t it?
asserted
it → sound → ?
A fixed month, framed by expectation, since expecting differs from hoping.
asserted
month → frame → expectation
It expresses optimism rather than presumption.
asserted
It → express → presumption
There’s a wishfulness, or maybe wishy-washiness, since hope doesn’t seem to lift a finger.
asserted
hope → ’ → finger
The verb feels passive despite its dynamic origins, the word possibly linked to hopping, as dictionary sleuth John Ayto speculates: “A suggestion that has found some favour is that the word is related to hop, and that it started from the notion of jumping to safety.”
uncertain
it → feel → safety
Hopeful as that sounds, Ayto adds a grain of salt.
asserted
Ayto → sound → salt
“The theory goes that ‘the place of refuge’ thus reached gives one ‘hope’, but it has an air of desperation.”
asserted
it → go → desperation
Being hope’s opposite, of course.
asserted
Being → ’ → course
Hence, we live between the hop-skip-jump of hope and the swamp of despair.
asserted
we → live → despair
So why focus on hope, you ask, and why now?
asserted
you → focus → hope
After all, Barack Obama peddled the word in 2008, via Shepard Fairey’s stencil poster with HOPE as election cry.
asserted
Obama → peddle → cry
Surely hope has run its race.
asserted
hope → run → race
Further proof is the snarky neologism of hopium, a metaphorical substance lending false cheer.
asserted
proof → lend → cheer
We dwell in bedlam on a grand scale.
asserted
We → dwell → scale
I don’t need to list the stressors as we deal with them daily – hence, hope.
asserted
we → need → them
Or how today has fostered a new strain of hope, the active kind.
asserted
today → foster → hope
Writer Claire Scobie spotted the shift in Wild Hope (NewSouth, 2026).
asserted
Scobie → spot → Hope
There she observes how hope has re-found its hop in recent years, a collective movement at grassroots level.
asserted
hope → observe → level
Less activism than being active, hope seeks to reverse the gloomy narrative of things, undo the doom.
asserted
hope → seek → doom
Separate from Hallmark pap, hope is evolving into an invitation, a chance to make small differences.
asserted
hope → evolve → differences
In her quest, Scobie visits several examples, from wild swimming in Melbourne’s Birrarung (Yarra) to a wind turbine outside of Bristol, the generator’s output shared by the village of Lawrence Weston itself.
asserted
output → visit → Weston
That’s right.
asserted
That → ’ → ?
In one local hop, POP (People-Owned Power) became reality.
asserted
POP → own → hop
Just as teaching Gumbaynggirr in schools around Coffs Harbour has knitted a community closer together.
asserted
teaching → teach → community
Or Lee Robb’s decision to counter the online shit-talk about her beloved Carrickfergus in Country Antrim has helped to foster that town’s Friendly Food Club for fresh organics.
asserted
decision → counter → organics
“Hope is the thing with feathers,” wrote Emily Dickinson in 1861.
asserted
Dickinson → write → 1861
And now, in 2026, it seems hope has wings, too.
asserted
hope → seem → wings
Want more WordPlay?
- Richard Morecroft’s surname yields the anagram ‘comforter’, which is only right
- Lisa says her husband is ‘trolling’, but he denies it.
asserted
he → want → it
Who’s right?
asserted
Who → ’ → ?
- Flong time no see: My adventures with a daily dictionary dip
- Language in the age of AI: Whimsymaxxing the apocalypse
- How card games shuffled the everyday language of sports
- TV or Not TV: our favourite two-letter word’s identity crisis
- Fifty shades of … what?
asserted
games → see → what
- How a regional Instagram account is recording the latest entrants in the Aussie lexicon
- Out of the box: The grammatical nightmare keeping me awake
asserted
account → record → me
The Aporia
