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.