Or Whatever

I’ve noticed that a typ­i­cal Cleve­land res­i­dent often ends state­ments with the par­tic­u­late phrase “or what­ev­er.” Seman­ti­cal­ly it seems to be the equiv­a­lent in func­tion as “I guess”, a sort of simul­ta­ne­ous space-filler and dis­mis­sive qual­i­fi­er; an inten­tion­al addi­tion so that the speak­er feels that he or she isn’t being over­con­fi­dent in their state­ment or bear­ing. I noticed this habit creep­ing into my speech and had to put a stop to it. I might not always be as con­cise as pos­si­ble, or enun­ci­ate clear­ly, but I think my speech is pret­ty cruft­less in oth­er wise. Now that I’ve most­ly rid myself of this Cleve­land-spe­cif­ic ten­den­cy, or what­ev­er, I’ve start­ed notic­ing it more and more often in oth­er peo­ple’s usage. This abil­i­ty of mine, almost a con­fir­ma­tion bias, only real­ly annoys me in music, as there are cer­tain songs that I’ll notice a tiny piece of sam­pled pro­duc­tion, and then can nev­er merge it back into the sound­scape after­ward, or what­ev­er.