Talk:anyway

Does anybody know roughly when ending a statement or question with "anyway" started being used?

i have not seen it used or written down prior to the broadcast of the TV programme "whose line is it anyway?", though I'm certain it was in modern parlance before that.


 * I'm not sure there was ever a time when it couldn't end a sentence. Certainly this usage goes back at least 150 years.  Widsith 13:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

In any way or manner whatever
Get the job done anyway you can --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:45, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Usually any way. in any manner; by any means --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * any ways as an adverb = ‘in any way, in any respect, at all’, is used in the Book of Common Prayer ( All those who are any ways afflicted…in mind, body, or estate ), in AV ( And if the people of the land doe any wayes hide their eyes from the men), and in many literary contexts during the last four centuries. --Backinstadiums (talk) 21:49, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

in a careless or haphazard manner, anyhow
Is this the same as sense 5? https://www.wordreference.com/definition/anyway --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * OED has 3 subsenses corresponding to our sense 5, one of which is "In any manner whatsoever, however imperfect." But all of their quotes have it written as two words, e.g.
 * "My husband was upset that the boys had been placing items in the attic just any way."
 * They also mention any which way as a comparable form. We should probably have an entry for that. Colin M (talk) 16:20, 24 March 2021 (UTC)