Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 12:06:39 -0500

From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: Thoughts on "whole nuther"



The speaker wants to use "whole" to modify "other" and "another" to modify

"canyon system".



I agree that infixing isn't the best explanation for _whole nother_. But I

wonder if part of what is going on here might not have something to do with

vocalization of the /l/ in _whole_; one must therefore link _a who'_ with

_other_ by means of a glottal stop; but the /n/ is (1). already there in

_another_ and (2) a more formal morphophonemic variant of the glottal stop

for many of us anyway (i.e., those of us who say _a apple_ as an informal

variant of _an apple_). In other words, maybe "whole nuther" is a kind of

hypercorrection.