August 7, 1996

nother

I'm interested in the expression "A whole nother," as in, "That's a whole nother matter." Is it a combination of "A whole other" and "another," or is "whole" actually in the middle of "another" (like unbef**kinlievable")?

The word nother, which simply means 'other; different', comes from a misdivision of an other or another. This type of misdivision has several parallels in English. The word newt was originally "ewte" in Middle English, but the phrase "an ewte" was changed to "a newt." Similarly, nickname was originally "an ekename" ("eke" being an archaic word for 'also' that still pops up from time to time), but was misdivided as "a nekename." In the other direction, apron was once "napron," but "a napron" was turned into "an apron."

There is evidence for the misdivided nother 'other' going back to around 1300. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as obsolete except in dialectal use, but the set phrase "a whole nother" is common in the United States and has been for at least several decades.