a whole nother

[Michael Adams]

Sometimes it's jocular, certainly. But not two days ago I heard an NPR commentator use "a whole nother thing" without cracking a smile or raising an eyebrow -- you could hear that he wasn't smiling, though I guess I can't hear an eyebrow as well as a smile.

~ Michael


-----Original Message-----
From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Sent: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 1:03 PM
Subject: Re: a whole nother


>And here's a whole nother reason it can't (read "shouldn't") be infixing
>in English: it would be the only case I can think of in which a proposed
>infixing would end up generating an interposing -- another infixed as a
>whole nother ends up becoming a phrase, "a whole nother," in which whole
>is interposed. I would never say that it couldn't happen (always unwise to
>say), but given our current expectations it shouldn't happen -- should it?
>Can anyone think of another example?
>
>~ Michael
 ~~~~~~~~~~~
My impression is that most of the times I hear it, it is delivered with a
certain jocularity or wryness of tone. Wouldn't that have some implications
affecting its evolutionary diagnosis?
AM

~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>

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