possible antedate of indiscriminative "whatever"?

[Laurence Horn]

>My apologies,Laurence.  Did I miss that you said you had recently
>viewed the movie?
>

I did view it (the night I posted), but I don't have it on me to
recheck the stress pattern at the moment.

Larry

>At 7/22/2006 10:12 AM, you wrote:
>>>Oral memory is elusive--one should hear the scene (wait for the next
>>>repeat on Turner Classic Movies!).  But I don't remember a stress on
>>>the second syllable,
>>
>>Stress was on first syllable, although I'll take it out from the
>>library again to confirm it (the scene was at approx. 1:22 on the
>>DVD counter).
>>
>>>  and do remember receiving the "recent voguish"
>>>sense.  I think I remember that the speaker sounds resigned, and the
>>>discussion moves on to another aspect of the crime.
>>
>>Yes, he's waving off the police detective, and the sense is one of
>>ungracious concession, which I take to be the heart of the current
>>trendy use.  ("Even if you're right, it's irrelevant because...")
>>
>>LH
>>
>>>
>>>At 7/22/2006 08:41 AM, you wrote:
>>>>On Sat, 22 Jul 2006, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>It looks pretty solid to me. I'm trying to find a reason to
>>>>>dismiss it, but can't.
>>>>
>>>>Aren't there two uses of intensive "whatever"?  One is a recent voguish
>>>>use indicating extreme indifference: "if that's what you think, fine, it's
>>>>not important enough to me to argue about it, end of discussion, let's
>>>>move on to something else."  The other is a more traditional usage,
>>>>unrecorded by OED, indicating anger and pronounced with a strong emphasis
>>>>on the second syllable: "the point you are making is irrelevant to the
>>>>real issue, which I will now explain to you."  This traditional use is
>>>>probably elliptical for some saying like "whatever you say is besides the
>>>>point."  I think Larry's example illustrates the second sense.  Am I
>>>>misanalyzing this?
>>>>
>>>>Fred
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
>>>>Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
>>>>   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
>>>>Yale Law School                             forthcoming
>>>>e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
>>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
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>
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