There are certain words in English that ‘grammar snobs’ wish they could make disappear. The word ‘nother’ surely falls into that category.
If you ask certain grammar enthusiasts about words they despise, you’ll find some words seem universally hated. I recently found a Listverse article titled “10 Words Grammar Snobs Say Shouldn’t Exist but Do.” The list contained the word impactful, which is definitely on my list because the word impact has become so overused. It also included the word nother.
Merriam-Webster defines the word as “other.”
But it adds that the word is typically used in the phrase “a whole nother,” in speech or informal prose.
That’s a nice way of telling you that you shouldn’t use it in more formal applications. Your boss at work probably doesn’t want a report using the phrase “a whole nother.” Your college might raise its eyebrows if you included the phrase in a dissertation. (Unless, of course, you were writing about grammar curiosities.)
Otherwise, for grammar snobs, using such words might take their anger (and blood pressure) to “a whole other level.”
The Listverse article points out the word showed up in the 14th century. People used it, the article says, to function similarly to “another.” But it says that it became common in the 19th century to see nother as a standalone word “and a synonym” for another.
I’ll confess that I’ve never seen nother used as a standalone outside of the phrase “a whole nother.”
It sounds awkward — and flat-out wrong — to say, “I’ll have nother cookie.”
It’s an example of tmesis
Tmesis is a curious practice of adding a word or phrase into the middle of another word.
Consider this bit from the song “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” from the play My Fair Lady:
Oh, so loverly sittin’ abso-bloomin’-lutely still
I would never budge till
Spring crept over my window sill
Did the word absolutely actually need that bloomin’ shoved right in the middle of it? No.
Does the word another actually need the word whole spliced in the middle of it? Not at all.
But we do it at times for humor or effect when we speak. We rarely do it when we write, unless we’re similarly going for a laugh or creating a character.
Gayle King of CBS Mornings enjoys using the phrase “a grown-ass man” instead of just “a grown man,” particularly to describe an adult who should know better than to do whatever he allegedly did. That’s another example of tmesis. It adds a bit of emphasis to the words. Your ears certainly notice “grown-ass man” more than you would notice “grown man.”
So is ‘nother’ good or bad?
Like most usage questions in English, it has to depend on the context. As I said, in a more formal application, tmesis is probably not the best idea.
But when you’re talking with friends and relatives, where we tend to be less formal, anyway, words like nother probably won’t be the end of the world.
Just use them sparingly and your friends probably will laugh along…hopefully with you rather than at you.
Of course, the word used to describe the adding of a word to a word seems to be, at least, missing a vowel, itself.
I’ll admit to using nother in everyday speech, but only within the phrase, “Donchu go nothuh futhuh.” I took it from an old James Brown song, and both my children and grandchildren have heard me say it many times! 🙂
As you can imagine, spell check wasn’t happy with that word, either…I had to look it up to confirm the spelling.