a whole nother

Sun Oct 8 11:59:18 UTC 2006

The best argument I can find against infixing is the use of "nother" without
"a".  nother goes back to Middle English (both as "neither" and "other") used
even with "one" and "no" preceding.  If it can follow "no" that would be pretty
good evidence that it's not an infix.

It's not only ME (though that's the bulk of its occurance) the Urban Dictionary
lists it and provides the phrase "no nother" as an example of usage.  I've also
heard and seen "nother" used after "some."  The uses "some nother" and "no
nother" make me think it's resyllabification to "a nother" and not an infix.

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   Michael H. Covarrubias
   Department of English
   Purdue University

   215 Heavilon Hall
   500 Oval Dr
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   Office: 765-494-3721

   mcovarru at purdue.edu

   web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
   wishydig.blogspot.com

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