252 What’s More and Whatever
9.2 What’s More in Present- Day English
In the what’s more construction, according to the OED, the what- clause is
“a prefatory (usually parenthetic) qualifying clause,” equivalent to an adverb
meaning ‘furthermore, still more’ (s.v. what , pron., adj.^1 , and adv., int., conj.
and n., def. C 3b); under the entry for more (adj, pron., adv., n.^3 , and prep.,
def. B 1c), what’s more is seen as an adverbial phrase introducing an sentence
“expressing something more important than what has preceded.” While what’s
more normally stands outside the clausal structure, it is sometimes interpo-
lated and stands in apposition to some word or phrase or even an implied idea
(Poutsma 1917: 971; Jespersen 1927 [1961]: 113; Curme 1935 : 46).
The variants of parenthetical what’s more encountered in Present- day English
are what’s more , what is more , and what was more , as illustrated below:
(1) a. Schwarzenegger enjoys a fairly stable 65% approval rating. What’s more ,
California’s economy has improved under his leadership. (2004/ 12/ 20 TIME)
b. Tuesday’s vote was a repudiation of his efforts. What ’ s more , last week’s
rout may well quiet critics (2002/ 11/ 18 TIME)
c. What is more , circuses showed people doing things that transgressed typical
barriers of gender and age. (2006 Antiques [COCA])
d. Nonsense – ; it is the quickest way to learn and, what is more , is never forgot-
ten (1990 Maidment, I remember, I remember [BYU- BNC])
e. What was more , we fought that war with a conscript army. (1992 American
Heritage [COCA])
f. She had spent a fear- fi lled night beneath a stone slab in the meat cellar and,
what was more , completely alone (1991 Elgin, All the sweet promises
[BYU- BNC])
Note that what is/ ’s/ was more is typically sentence or clause initial, although it
can be clause medial; it does not occur clause fi nally.
Corpus data (see Table 9.1 ) show us that what’s more is over four times
more common than what is more in Present- day English, and what was more is
relatively infrequent. What’s more is 6.6 times more likely to occur on its own
(parenthetically) without a complement than with a complement (e.g., what’s
more important , what’s more to the point ), and what is more is almost equally
often found in both structures, while what’s more is 2.4 times more likely to be
followed by a complement. The bare, non- complemented form occurs almost
exclusively in clause- initial position or following a conjunction.^1 While non-
complemented what is/ ’s/ was more occurs in all of the genres (see Figure 9.1 ),
it is found most often in the Magazine genre, followed by the Newspaper and
1 A random sample of 100 examples of what’s more [comma] in COCA yields 96 in initial posi-
tion, 3 following and , and 1 following but. When what’s more is followed by a complement it
is also in initial position, whether it is parenthetical or serves as the subject of a wh- cleft (see
below).