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For some reason, my ears were tuned to a whole nother frequency last week. That is, I heard the word nother everywhere I turned. Mostly it followed the word whole, though I’d swear someone said, “That’s an entire nother story” once, and someone else dismissed “a complete nother idea.” There’s even a children’s book series by someone suspiciously named Dr. Cuthbert Soup that includes A Whole Nother Story, Another Whole Nother Story, and No Other Story (Whole Nother Story).
I knew the word was resulting from splitting another with an adjective, and that—as, occasionally, with split infinitives—the splitting was necessary for clarity of meaning. Another whole frequency wouldn’t mean the same thing, and An entire another idea is repetitive. Even a whole other frequency doesn’t have quite the same nuance of meaning.
Being curious, I went looking for nother, and…
