272 What’s More and Whatever
in the electronic media but also results from changing educational policies,
new social agendas, philosophical relativism in the academy, and the speed of
contemporary life. She postulates dire consequences for the English language
(171), including the “quasi- anarchy” of medieval or Renaissance England
toward spelling and punctuation, writing which is increasingly informal, a
diminution in the role of writing for presenting thoughts clearly, and reduction
in the role of language as social status marker. Though it is beyond the scope
of this chapter to address these issues, see Pullum ( 2008 ) and Zwicky ( 2009 ).
9.6 Origin and History of the Pragmatic Marker Whatever
Little is known about the history of whatever in its pragmatic use. As Liberman
( 2007 ) notes, “I’m not sure whether anyone has documented in detail the pro-
cess whereby traditional whatever evolved into the now- common stand- alone
expression.” The Wikipedia entry on “ whatever (slang)” sees it as arising in the
late twentieth/ early twenty- fi rst century as a “sentence in its own right,” i.e.,
an interjection. Like many popular expressions (see Section 7.3.4 on I’m just
saying ), this use of whatever has been seen to arise in the Valley Girl dialect of
California. Zimmer ( 2009b ) points out that whatever was attributed by CNN
to the movies “Clueless” (1995) and “Valley Girl” (1983): “Californian youth,
especially Valley Girls, often get blame for disliked colloquialisms.” But as
has been pointed out, the expression does not occur in the song “Valley Girl”
by Frank Zappa (Zwicky 2009 ), and the earliest forms cited in the literature
predate the song and movie. Wikipedia cites uses of exclamatory whatever
in two television programs in 1965, Bewitched (27a) and My mother the car.
COHA provides a 1965 example from a fi lm script (27b). Topher Cooper (see
Liberman 2007 ) notes that it was a characteristic of Archie Bunker’s speaking
style in All in the family that aired from 1970– 1979 (27c), and the OED gives
an example from a 1973 State Department document which defi nes the word
for soldiers returning from Viet Nam (suggesting it was current at the time, but
of recent origin) (27d). Contemporary examples from a fi lm script and a novel
are also found in COHA (27e– f):
(27) a. Endora : [ Endora pops in after Aunt Clara turns Darrin into a chimpanzee ]
Good morning, Samantha.
Samantha Stephens : Mother, there’s something I have to tell you.
Endora : Good morning, Derwood.
Samantha Stephens : Darrin.
Endora : Alright, whatever. (1965 Bewitched http://www.imdb.com/ character/
ch0025451/ quotes [Wikipedia] )
b. BILL: Wonderful. Why don’t you do a batch of your Bloody Marys? If
that’s okay with you, Shooter? SHOOTER: Great. Whatever. (1965 The
Cincinnati Kid [COHA])