# Phrases (or words) Like "A Whole Nother" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 29, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055 "2009-05-29T17:44:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/1 "2009-05-29T17:44:13Z")
I was thinking, it seems like the phrase “a whole nother,” is simply the word “another” and someone inserted a word between the “a” and the “nother” part. Is this so? I don’t think there is a word “nother” at least not one that makes sense. There probably an obscure word “nother.” Anyway, if this is so, are there other words or phrases like this? And is there a term for this? Or is is just sloppy grammar 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2009, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/2 "2009-05-29T17:47:24Z")
Abso freaking lutely it’s used other places. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/3 "2009-05-29T17:52:22Z")
Like the prefix and suffix, the infix…a staple in many other lamguages…is making inroads into english. If only as slang and swearing. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/4 "2009-05-29T17:52:55Z")
The term for what you’re asking for (where a word is inserted in the middle of another word) is “infix”. However, I suspect that what’s going on in “a whole nother” is back-formation: People who use that construction may actually think that “nother” is a word, and that “another” is actually “a nother”, in which case they’re not breaking up a word, they’re just putting a word between two other words. ---
**Author:** ![Teacake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Teacake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teacake)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/5 "2009-05-29T17:53:00Z")
tmesis, also timesis (noun) the separation of a word into parts by inserting one or more words in the middle. Perhaps most famously “abso-bloomin-lutely” in Alan Jay Lerner’s “Wouldn’t it be Loverly” from My Fair Lady. There is no word “nother” that I know of. Another is made of an and other. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/6 "2009-05-29T18:03:21Z")
I see on preview I got beaten to “tmesis,” but here’s the wiki article: [Tmesis - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tmesis) My favorite example is my sister complaining about having to visit her in-laws in “South-damn-Dakota.” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/7 "2009-05-29T18:15:06Z")
This is just a reversal of a very old way words changed. For instance, an apron was originally called a napron and an orange was a norange. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/8 "2009-05-30T01:10:27Z")
I read the title as " A Whore Mother". ---
**Author:** ![TaterRecon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f14d63/32.png) [@TaterRecon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TaterRecon)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/9 "2009-05-30T02:54:15Z")
The phrase should be: **a whole other** NOT\*\* a whole nother\*\*. Example: I was going to prep for the test but then a friend came by and told me he had seen a UFO (which is a whole other story) and it distracted me. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/10 "2009-05-30T03:00:44Z")
I don’t know what you mean by “. . . the phrase should be. . .” It’s more common to hear “a whole nother” than to hear “a whole other,” I think. It may be true in your dialect that “a whole other” is more common, but that’s not true in general. I don’t know of what basis you can say that one is more correct than the other. ---
**Author:** ![TaterRecon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f14d63/32.png) [@TaterRecon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TaterRecon)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/11 "2009-05-30T03:20:58Z")
No, it’s definitely more common to hear “a whole 'nother” in my part of the country. What I am suggesting is that “a whole other” is actually a phrase which is correct English. In other words, “a whole 'nother” is simply a mispronunciation (i.e. it is slang). > [@](#): > > It is one thing to use the expression “a whole ’nother” as a consciously slangy phrase suggesting rustic charm and a completely different matter to use it mistakenly. The A at the beginning of the phrase is the common article “a” but is here treated as if it were simultaneously the first letter of “another,” interrupted by “whole.” [http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/whole.html](http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/whole.html) ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/12 "2009-05-30T03:58:27Z")
The only other construction like this that I hear commonly is a play on the word “behave.” Like, my mom will ask my kids whether they are “being have.” It’s asked as a pure joke, not because Grandma doesn’t know grammar. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/13 "2009-05-30T04:01:19Z")
It’s “an other” and not “a nother” so technically it would be “an whole other” except the “an” must be replaced with “a” to sound right. Hence it ought to be “a whole other” but then it doesn’t sound like you’re saying “another” anymore, and it all goes pear shaped. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/14 "2009-05-30T05:34:46Z")
> [@TaterRecon](#): > > No, it’s definitely more common to hear “a whole 'nother” in my part of the country. What I am suggesting is that “a whole other” is actually a phrase which is correct English. In other words, “a whole 'nother” is simply a mispronunciation (i.e. it is slang). You’re new around here, right? Very shortly, someone will call you a Nazi, for daring to say that there’s such a thing as “correct English.” :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/15 "2009-05-30T07:07:56Z")
You misspelled _nother_. If I had my druthers, it’d be spelled _nuther_, but nawh I’m not a spelling Nazi, now. ---
**Author:** ![Auntbeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/16 "2009-05-30T16:23:23Z")
Am I the only one who remembers the scene from Pretty Woman? “A hot-fucking-dog” I even think a comedian did a bit about it being a rather novel placement of the f-word, one they would not have thought of. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/17 "2009-05-30T17:58:00Z")
uummm…am I the only one who has always assumed that “a whole nuther” is based on the word “another” ? Ya know, like when you mean “that’s a totally different issue”. You could say “that’s a **whole** different story” , or “that’s **another** story altogether” Now just add some sloppy diction, and combine the words ‘whole’ and ‘another’… You get: “That’s a whole 'nuther story” ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/18 "2009-05-30T18:52:02Z")
My Modern English Grammar teacher in college asked one day when we were talking about affixes if anyone could think of an example in English that used an infix. I did pipe up with a perfectly serviceable example, but I still regret not taking the opportunity to say “absofuckinglutely.” Mainly because I know that’s the one she was secretly hoping someone would come up with. ---
**Author:** ![TaterRecon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f14d63/32.png) [@TaterRecon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TaterRecon)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/19 "2009-05-30T23:23:31Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Very shortly, someone will call you a Nazi, for daring to say that there’s such a thing as “correct English.” :rolleyes: So I guess that person was you? I think most people speak slang even though they know out there somewhere exists a correct way. I was just answering the question. ---
**Author:** ![Notassmartasithought](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c0e974/32.png) [@Notassmartasithought](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Notassmartasithought)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2009, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055/20 "2009-05-31T02:15:26Z")
I remember visiting with a college classmate just after he’d finished Marine boot camp, and his most amazing story was how many obscene verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs a drill instructor could insert into a word. The least offensive? “Muske-fucking-teer.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phrases-or-words-like-a-whole-nother/498055.md?page=2)