Nother...The Slangification Of America

  a whole nother brother

I've been hearing a phrase a lot as of late and although I'm neither a linguistic king or grammar god it just seems that, in the words of cartoon character great, Foghorn Leghorn: "It just don't add up." The phrase is, "Whole nother."

As in: "Don't get me started on you not doing your homework Timmy, that's a whole nother issue altogether!"

I'm hearing this in grocery stores, coffee shops, on podcasts, radio and more. I'd like to believe that cats are attempting to say, "That is a whole another topic." Which as you can see is also ass-backwards. Or maybe they're going for: "That's a whole other topic" which although feels like an ill-fitting suit is apparently correct. Perhaps what's best is: "That's an entirely different topic." Either way I'm not here to judge. I love slang and I take poetic license at every opportunity.

I started thinking about 'nother' like it was it's own word. What if a rock band from the Netherlands called themselves "Nother." At their show they'd say, "Welcome! We're Nother from the Netherlands and we're going to play you a whole nother song from our: Nother Mother album!"

Sorry that's just where my mind goes sometimes. So let's keep going. Imagine the band is on the road but the singer takes ill and they have to cut the tour short. The guitar player might say, "Sorry dear fans but Nother from The Netherlands must take a break because our singer has injured his nether regions...but that's a whole nother nether story!"

If I ever get pulled over by the cops and the cop says "We're looking for a burglar that fits your description."  I'll say, "Uh uh, not me. You must be looking for a whole nother brother. I was at church in pew twenty-five. But that's a whole nother story officer Timmons."

Nother brother doin' research!

Alas, I did something I pretty much never do before I blog and that is research. And...lo and behold the word 'nother' dates back to the 14th century. Back in that day they often paired it with the word 'whole'. They took 'whole' and 'another' and dropped the letter 'a' or 'eh' as Canadians oft' coin. It seems those cats were deep into the slangification (my word) long before we came along. And now we're back. One wonders who doth bring us this past colloquy?

Piano tossed from great height!!!

Personally, I don't use the phrase myself but I am a fan because when slick grammar meets laziness and is adopted by the bulk of the human herd I get a kick out of it. However, not all of this turn of phrase, dialog and word-jazz is cute. For example, when people add the letters 'TH' to the word height when describing how tall an object is making it become heightth instead of height, I want to snap, go off, lose it, drive into a guardrail, hurl, roundhouse kick a supporting pillar of an important building and throw a piano through a bay window. But that my friends...is a whole nother blog...