Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 08:59:39 -0500

From: Brian James Callarman bjc0007[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]JOVE.ACS.UNT.EDU

Subject: Re: whole nuther ballgame



On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Jeutonne P. Brewer wrote:



What is the source/background/history of a phrase like

whole nuther xxx? Someone asked me about his phrase today.

I've heard it all my life. I hear it in the English Department

here. I think that I have read some discussion of this, but

evidently I didn't pay attention.



Jeutonne



**********************************************

Jeutonne P. Brewer, Associate Professor

Department of English

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Greensboro, NC 27412

email: jpbrewer[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hamlet.uncg.edu

URL: http://www.uncg.edu/~jpbrewer

***********************************************





Six months ago I went hiking in the Palo Duro Canyon of the Texas

Panhandle. While preparing and planning my route I was talking with a

park ranger who told me, "If you climb over that there plateau there's a

whole nother canyon system that no one really knows about." I too had

heard this form used all my life, but this was probably the first time I

ever really thought about it. Plus, I had three days alone on the trail

to cogitate on it. It seems to me that this phrase would probably come

from the breaking up of the word "another", which is just a

grammaticalized form of "an other" and is used as an Adjective. If you

weren't going to use the word "whole" in this phrase it would simply be,

"...there's another canyon system...". You could say, "There's another

whole...", and both "another" and "whole" would be modifying the following

noun, but what the average Joe is really wanting to do is specify that the

"canyon system" (or whatever is being talked about) is a different "canyon

system" all together. This would place the emphasis of the sentence on

the idea of "other". So, when the rubber meets the road in the

split-second descision making of how to say what you mean useing the given

tools to do so, how do you modify "other" and then use that phrase to

modify "canyon system" at the same time in the same sentence? The speaker

wants to use "whole" to modify "other" and "another" to modify "canyon

system". This, in effect, becomes a whole nother form in English grammar

all together.



Brian Callarman