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Often one will hear the phrase that's a whole nother kettle of fish, but is "nother" actually grammatical? If not, what would the correct way of saying it be?

Dog Lover
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    It should be spelled 'nother (since it's a contraction of "another"), and it's not exactly the King's English. – Hot Licks May 21 '15 at 13:12
  • @HotLicks I read a few posts on ELU, and the apostrophe was actually a trivial matter. – Dog Lover May 21 '15 at 13:15
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    Nonsense. That would require us to respell 'orange and 'adder, for instance. The indefinite article is still productive, and spaces are silent. – John Lawler May 21 '15 at 15:45
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    @HotLicks It's not a contraction of another; see Au101's answer. Using an apostrophe there is not justified. – WinnieNicklaus May 21 '15 at 18:47
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    As @WinnieNicklaus mentioned, this is not a contraction of "another" because "A whole another ..." isn't grammatical at all. It's an intrusion of an "n" between "whole" and "other" along an analogy of "a" and "an". – A.Ellett May 21 '15 at 22:55
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    'A whole nother' is exactly the way to say it in very informal or regional varieties of English (at least AmE). In standard more formal American English you would say 'a whole other', but that phrase is so reminiscent of 'a whole nother' that you'd probably want to say something entirely different, like 'an entirely different thing'. Re: grammatical: both ways are 'grammatical' in their different contexts (informal vs formal). If I know what you're getting at with 'grammatical', no, you should not use 'a whole nother' in written or spoken English unless you want to sound very colloquial. – Mitch May 22 '15 at 01:49
  • Hmm you seem to have upvoted an incorrect answer!!! – Araucaria - Him Jul 07 '15 at 13:51
  • Dog Lover, please consider changing the correct answer to be that of @Au101. – Lee Whitney III Nov 28 '16 at 14:28
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    @LeeWhitney That's why I awarded them a bounty at the time of this question. I liked the succinctness of CupawnTae's answer and the detail of Au101's. – Dog Lover Nov 29 '16 at 00:53
  • Related: "A 'whole nother' way of looking at things." – Sven Yargs Mar 06 '17 at 03:48
  • @SvenYargs Based on that, could you say that "nother" has been used in place of "other" in "a whole nother" for the sake of speech flow? – Dog Lover Mar 06 '17 at 04:49
  • I do think that word emphasis and metrical flow (or something like it) have a tremendous subliminal power in speech and contribute mightily to what become colloquial preferences. But I don't how a person would go about substantiating so broad a conjecture. – Sven Yargs Mar 06 '17 at 05:29

6 Answers6

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Actually, this is an example of what's called "tmesis". It is the insertion of a word into another word. In "a whole nother" the "a" and the "-nother" go together and the "whole" is slotted between them.

It is exactly the same process you get with the common, but more vulgar,

"Abso-fucking-lutely" or "unbe-fucking-lievable".

For a humorous take on the subject: xkcd.

Regarding "a whole other"

"A whole other" is a very common formulation; it is perfectly fine, use it if you wish. "A whole nother" is a very common formulation; it is perfectly fine, use it if you wish.

The thing about "a whole other" is that it's actually quite strange. According to etymonline.com it was way back in the 13th century that "an other" was combined into "another". "Another" is now a separate word in its own right. In fact, it is the word of choice. You will rarely find "an other thing", "another thing" is pervasive.

That's the thing about "a whole nother", it isn't the mistaken analysis that you have "a" and "nother" - it's the insertion of one word "whole" into a second (single) word "another". And that second word is "another", with an "n". This process intensifies "another". Compare:

"Here's another apple" - here we are talking about an apple. It is much like all the other apples that have been discussed. Our speaker is pointing out an unremarkable apple, an apple like many others before it. It's just another one.

"Here's a whole nother apple" - now we have a very different kind of apple. Perhaps, before, we only had red apples, but now we have a green apple. This isn't just another apple, like its fellows - this is a whole nother apple.

In reality, you'd be more likely to have something like "here's another apple" (points to an apple) and then "here's a whole nother fruit" (points to an orange).

"A whole other" is a different process. What is the difference? "A whole other" is like "fucking unbelievable." "A whole nother" is like "unbe-fucking-lievable".

With "a whole other", then, we have a whole nother thing going on. Firstly, we have "another" separated again, into "a" and "other", as it was prior to the 13th century. We also have "whole" qualifying "other". This is a little unusual. Consider, for example, "the whole other". There's nothing wrong with this, but this has fallen out of fashion. "A whole other" is quite a new formulation, relatively speaking, and one can't fail to notice that it's rare to have words qualifying "other". We could have "the good other books", but we prefer not to. We prefer "the other good books", or "the other, good books". (In the first case we have books that are good - like the other ones - and in the second we have books that are good - unlike the other ones).

This may explain why "a whole nother" comes along shortly after "a whole other", as @CupawnTae explains.

So: "a whole other" is a very common formulation; it is perfectly fine, use it if you wish. In fact, I find both "a whole other" and "a whole nother" very interesting, very cool, very valuable bits of English. I don't much have a problem with either of them. But, to argue that "a whole other" must be gramatically correct, because the word is "other", not "nother", seems to me to be a mistake. In fact, the word is "another". And the insertion of "whole" into "another" is a process relating to word-formation, to vocabulary, not to grammar. Admittedly, though, the spelling "a whole nother" is a little bit of a red herring. "A-whole-nother" would be more revealing.

Au101
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    I agree that this is tmesis, but I disagree that it's "exactly" the same process as your other examples. For example, also very common are "a whole different kettle of fish", "a whole different ballgame" etc. You could substitute "completely" in these cases. But you wouldn't say "abso-whole-lutely" or "abso-competetely-lutely". The "whole" is not merely added for emphasis; it is a quantifier, and the difficulty only arises because "an other" has become fused into "another". The meaning is still the same as "an other". Just as it's not "a-whole-different", it wouldn't be "a-whole-nother". – CupawnTae May 21 '15 at 19:51
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    Interesting ngram https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=a+whole+other%2Ca+whole+nother&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ca%20whole%20other%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ca%20whole%20nother%3B%2Cc0 – CupawnTae May 21 '15 at 19:54
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    Well, you wouldn't say "abso-whole-lutely" because whole wouldn't make sense there, but you could say "abso-bleeding-lutely", "abso-cocking-lutely", etc. You could have "a complete nother", but that's novel. This process isn't very productive in English, it tends to be restricted to a small number of lexicalised examples. It's true you can't just stick any word into any other word by tmesis. It wouldn't be "a-whole-different" because there is not one word "adifferent", there is one word "another". I can imagine someone saying "di-fucking-fferent", even though that'd be, yeah, novel – Au101 May 21 '15 at 19:57
  • Not enough room in comments to really express things :-) I guess my point is it's a special case because of the way "another" was formed. You want to quantify "other", but the convenient space between it and the preceding "an" has been common-usaged out of existence. In the other examples, it's completely artificial - you're not trying to say "bleeding lutely", it's just tmesis for the sake of it. But it's easy to achieve the quantification of "other", you just have to remember that "another" is exactly "an other", it's just that that's how we spell it these centuries... – CupawnTae May 21 '15 at 20:08
  • If they had different meanings, you would expect both "another" and "an other" to remain in usage. The fact that "a different kettle of fish" and "a whole different kettle of fish" are pretty much equivalent to the "another" case also demonstrates what I mean. It's not because it's "another" that you wouldn't say "a good other" - you wouldn't say "a good different apple" either. – CupawnTae May 21 '15 at 20:10
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    I think you're going in the wrong direction with your one word versus two word distinction. Think about "one other". "Get me one other nice apple" versus "Get me one other, nice apple" - exactly the same effect as "another". It's not the single-wordness that's the difference here, it's the meaning of "other". – CupawnTae May 21 '15 at 20:33
  • That is a fair comment – Au101 May 21 '15 at 20:37
  • A great answer! I liked the cartoon as well. Thank you. – Dog Lover May 21 '15 at 21:40
  • "A whole other" is proper Texas English and has been for decades. But you will hear "a whole nother" spoken, especially across the American South. – Michael Hampton May 22 '15 at 01:10
  • Absolutely; and by far the more popular version generally. I do not seek to deprecate "a whole other" at all, I have no objection to it whatever. It's just different to "a whole nother". I also suggest reasons why some people may find it odd and that may explain why "a whole nother" comes along as an alternative. But that doesn't make either of the bad or wrong, or good or right. Of course, in some places, "a whole other" may be preferred to such an extent that it's the only option in that dialect/register. Writing may be an example. Texas English is, apparently, another – Au101 May 22 '15 at 01:29
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    This analysis, though compelling, is not supported by the OED's entries on 'nother' and 'another'. 'nother' is attested in this usage back to Middle English (1300's). – Mitch May 22 '15 at 01:50
  • "Nother" is attested you're right, but "nother" is largely obsolete, while "a whole nother" arrives much later. The separate existance of "nother" does not, anyway, prove anything. The case for calling this tmesis is that "another" is 'the' word: we have always "another apple", "another story" etc. "A whole nother" is an emphatic variant of this. It would be odd to see this curious, virtually forgotten "nother" resurfacing just in this more modern phrase. – Au101 May 22 '15 at 02:22
  • Although, I could be made to believe there's a bit of both going on :) But I'd be a lot more convinced that "a whole nother" really is "(a) (whole) (nother)" if "nother" were still used ... anywhere else. As CupawnTae's linked graph shows, "a whole nother" is only just starting to take off – Au101 May 22 '15 at 02:32
  • Bookmarking this one to pull out, as it's a much more thorough analysis than I would put together. – Jason May 22 '15 at 20:31
  • @Au101 There's no evidence for it "resurfacing" it never disappeared!!! – Araucaria - Him Jul 07 '15 at 16:03
  • Disagree that this is any form of tmesis or infixing. Here's a thorough treatment based on metanalysis/rebracketing: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/why-do-people-say-a-whole-nother – kylealanhale Mar 09 '17 at 15:37
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I always took this usage to be purely humorous. Certainly I've only ever used it as such.

It's definitely not a contraction of "a whole another" - no one would say that (I hope). It's simply taking "another" and putting "whole" in the middle as if it was originally "a nother kettle of fish", which of course we know it's not.

The correct version is simply "a whole other".

EDIT: some more discussion on this here: "A whole nother" way of looking at things

Community
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CupawnTae
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This is NOT a case of tmesis. The modifier, nother, has been in use since the fourteenth century. It appears, for example, in the fourteenth century Northumbrian poem Cursor Mundi:

In-sted o þi noþer sede, Ne sal þe groue bot thorne and wede.

It also appears in early versions of the bible:

This kynd can by no nother meanes come forth, but by prayer.

Here's an example from David Crockett's An Account of Col. Crockett's Tour to the North and down East, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four … Written by himself, 1835, Carey & Hart:

I'll now answer one nother question about what's the best way of keepin the democratic party in my quarter from splittin.

This word now appears chiefly preceded by the word whole in modern American and British English. However, it survives in freer usage in Caribbean English. Here's an excerpt from Richard Allsopp's Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, 1996, OUP.

Peter and your nother brother were here today.

Notice that in all of these examples the word nother is not preceded by the indefinite article "a". The word nother is not a part of the word another with the infixing of an adjective. It's an extant word in its own right. It is easy to see however how that erroneous view could come about!

Given that this word has been used as a modifer in this way for eight centuries now, it's obviously a bit backwards to consider it an improper usage. Such phrases as a whole nother kettle of fish are, of course, perfectly grammatical. Of course whatever native speakers generally do is grammatical. That's what grammatical means!

Note: All this information, including quotes, is taken from the Oxford English Dictionary.

References: "nother, adj.2 and pron.2." OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2015. Web. 7 July 2015.

F.E.
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Araucaria - Him
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    +1, I tried to find the related spot in H&P CGEL, but seemed not able to this early in the morning, er, afternoon; and so, I've at least marked up the lexical index at the back with a comment! :) – F.E. Jul 07 '15 at 18:33
  • Do you mean "nother" has nothing to do with "another" etymologically? In "I'll now answer one nother question about what's the best way of keepin..." I think "one" functions in the same way and meaning as the indefinite article "a". –  Jul 10 '16 at 16:34
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    These citations are meaningless, unless you also want to say in-sted is a perfectly fine way to spell instead, kynd is a perfectly fine way to spell kind, and *keepin is a perfectly fine way to spell keeping. – Atario Mar 18 '21 at 16:37
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Ultimately, "a whole nother" is the reverse case of "an unwashed apron." Some English speakers treat "another" as a compressed version of "a nother" rather than of "an other," and the adjective "whole" simply slips in between the presumed article (a) and the presumed noun (nother).

The opposite split is on display in the case of "an unwashed apron": napron arrived in Middle English from the Middle French word naperon, a diminutive of nape (cloth), according to Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003). But owing to what the Eleventh Collegiate calls "false division of a napron," English speakers produced "an apron"; the adjective "unwashed" then slips into place between the revised article (an) and the revised noun (apron).

Because "a nother" is making its way in a (relatively) literate world crowded with written guides to and interpretations of proper English, it doesn't have as easy a path to acceptance before it as "an apron" did; but the process in spoken English is much the same, I think, except that here the false division yields "a" instead of "an" as the associated indefinite article.

A somewhat similar operation underlies the U.S. dialect word druthers (meaning "preferences"), which seems to have come into existence at the end of a process in which "I'd rather" was altered by the Southern Appalachian pronunciation of rather as ruther, and then rebroken as "I druther."

Sven Yargs
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  • Some English speakers treat "another" as a compressed version of "a nother" rather than of "an other," Is this true? If I thought nother were a word, I would surely think it meant not other, and then I would think a nother meant the opposite of another. – Kimball May 22 '15 at 00:50
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    This answer is supported by the OED's entries on 'nother' and 'another'. – Mitch May 22 '15 at 01:51
  • I should perhaps acknowledge a further complication involving nother, which is that it never (a far as I know) shows up in company with the definite article the. In this respect, of course, it is unlike apron as used today. – Sven Yargs May 22 '15 at 16:45
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    By far the best answer, although you may want to mention the name for the change: (junctural) metanalysis. With respect to another, I've been known to slip in other adjectives as well other than just whole. I disagree with other answers that it's tmesis. For one, the stress pattern is completely off of what you commonly here with tmesis, and completely fits the expected article/adjective/noun stress pattern. – user0721090601 May 23 '15 at 22:06
  • More on metanalysis or rebracketing: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/why-do-people-say-a-whole-nother – kylealanhale Mar 04 '17 at 16:07
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Nother used here is just a folksy synonym for another, paired with a folksy saying; it's not necessarily ungrammatical, just very informal. Some people write it with the apostrophe, like 'nother, to indicate that they're explicitly contracting "another".

You wouldn't want to replace it in your example of a whole nother kettle of fish, because that would disrupt the folksy tone, which is the entire point of the idiom. But if you insist, a grammatical substitute would be something like an entirely different kettle of fish.

John Feminella
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    Well, "a whole another kettle of fish" has to be violating some rule. One does sometimes hear "That's another kettle of fish" or even "That's another whole kettle of fish", both of which are technically "proper". – Hot Licks May 21 '15 at 13:21
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    ...and 'that's a whole other kettle of fish' which I feel is quite common. – Marv Mills May 21 '15 at 14:43
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    The Folksy meme includes 'Hur-bloody -rah' and other inter-What-now!-rupted turns of phrase. – Hugh May 21 '15 at 14:50
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    "Another" is not being contracted here, it's being split by the insertion of "whole". – WinnieNicklaus May 21 '15 at 18:50
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As others have noted, it’s a case of tmesis, and so is grammatical, though informal. The formal version would be “unexpectedly additional”: “That’s an unexpectedly additional kettle of fish.”

Two more examples of tmesis:

  1. Jesus H. Christ.
  2. what the trainer says to the jockey in the movie about Seabiscuit: “a whole nother gear”
EsperantoSpeaker1
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