Now, that's "a whole nother thing"

Imagine that Smoky and his neighbor Joe are talking about what's wrong in local politics, and Smokey says, "This city stinks. They keep passing foolish rules. I can't believe they passed an ordinance limiting the colors I can paint my house."

Joe answers, "They passed a law like that two towns over last year, but a judge ruled it's not legal."

Smoky replies, "Well, that's another thing. The city council never does their research. What a waste of time!"

When he uses the word "thing," Smoky is giving one more reason the city stinks. Another way to say the same thing is "that's a different reason," but that sounds too formal and academic for friendly conversation.

But that's not the interesting bit. What's interesting is that if Smoky wanted to add yet another complaint about the city, he just might say "That's a whole nother thing." This has the same meaning as "an entirely different thing," but did you notice what happened? If we take the phrase "a different thing," and we add the adverb"entirely" for emphasis, we change the "a" to "an" to create "an entirely different thing." No harm, no foul, right?

But with "Another thing," "Another" is a single word that came from the two words "an" + "other." Over time, it became one word. So, if you want to add the adverb"entirely," where would you put it? "That's entirely another thing," right? But more often than not, we use the word "whole" instead of the word "entirely." Well, "whole" is not an adverb, it's an adjective of sorts. Because adjectives usually follow articles, like "a" and "an," (a big truck), our natural instinct is to tuck it into the word "another," and in conversation, we usually follow our instincts. We say, "that's a whole nother thing," and old-fashioned English teachers wrinkle their noses for what they think is a violation of the rules of English grammar. However, grammar doesn't really rule the way we use language, it just describes it, so if enough people say "a whole nother," than it ain't really wrong, now, is it.

Now ya know!