a whole "nuther"?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:39:29 -0400, Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
wrote:

>Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>> it's been around for some time.  OED Online (Dec. 2003 revision) has
>> an entry for this "nother" (the second entry for "nother" as pronoun/
>> adjective).  the entry even specifically mentions "a whole nother".
>
>I remember discussing this reanalysis in syntax classes in grad school,
>in the mid 70s. I doubt it was new at that time, but that's as far back
>as I personally can place it.

OED's got "a whole nother" from 1963 (in _Word Study_), but N-archive can
place it 30 years earlier:

-----
1933 _Mansfield News_ (Ohio) 16 Nov. 3/2 I've lived a whole 'nother
lifetime in the last eighteen months.
[from "Love Denied" by Ethel Doherty and Louise Long]
-----


--Ben Zimmer