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Joan writes:
So often I hear people use the word “nuther” when they mean “other”. Like in “that’s a whole nuther story.”How did this happen?
First, I don’t think that the word “nuther/nother” is being substituted for the word “other” in this expression. Rather, the word “whole” is being inserted between elements of the word another: a-whole-nother.
It could be jocular usage, or it could be an example of metanalysis:
The reinterpretation of the form of a word resulting in the creation of a new word; esp. the changing of the boundaries between words or morphological units.
Our word apron, for example, used to be napron, but speakers hearing the words “a napron” thought they were hearing “an apron.” The same thing happened with auger, adder and umpire. Working in the other direction, what we call “a newt” used to be “an ewt(e).”
Some speakers may try to “correct” a whole nuther story to the ungrammatical a whole other story with the result that the latter may become a common usage.
As to how it happened–
“A whole nuther/nother story” has caught on because people who hear it like it.
It also fits the patterns of English speech. The OED, for example, offers several uses of nother, most of them obsolete, but the word has a long history in the language.
The Old English word oþer meant “a second of two.” The merger of an (one) with other is documented from 1225.
Another is different from the other:
another refers indefinitely to any further member of a series of indeterminate extent.
the other points to the remaining determinate member of a known series of two or more.
I don’t think “a whole nuther” belongs in the speech or writing of news announcers or journalists who have a responsibility to adhere to standard usage, but its informal use in conversation doesn’t pain my grammar nerve.
On the other hand, as blogger Dan Myers points out, if we use such constructions in jest, they will eventually come out of our mouths in earnest.
“What’s a Napron?” – an article of mine that appeared long ago in Highlights for Children.
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So, this isn’t the case of eliding words because it is easier to pronounce? Can you clarify a bit more?
This is something that I have wondered about for a while. I have always used “nuther” in speech and concluded that it was elision as part of some regional usage I inherited from my parents. (One was from eastern Washington state, the other from Oklahoma. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and don’t hear it that often from other people.) It’s really hard to say “a whole another thing”—and it sounds pretty weird! No wonder we try to “correct” it to “a whole other thing.”
Do you have any sense of who uses it and who doesn’t? I’ve recently become rather self-conscious about it, so at least now I know I’m not a total freak!
I’m one of those who don’t use “nuther.” Grammatically, I know it’s harmless, it’s just that there are people who think that’s a real word, that’s what bothers me. Oh well.
Kristi,
“A whole another thing” is not the way to go. As you say, it sounds pretty weird. That’s because it’s not idiomatic.
I think that “a whole nother thing” can be translated as “another thing entirely” or “another thing altogether.”
I believe that the phrase “a whole ‘nother” is in fact an excellent example of a tmesis, the figure of speech in which a word or phrase is split (the word comes from the Greek for cutting) by another word that serves to make the original more emphatic. The most common examples generally involve profanity or almost-profanity: abso-freakin’-lutely, for instance.
“A whole ‘nother” is abso-freakin’-lutely my favorite example of tmesis.
Ah, PF beat me to it. I had “A whole ‘nother” down as just another example of t-freakin’-mesis too