A nother "how often" list

[Maciek]

I'm waiting for the coffee to brew. Checked my Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories, which says that another was written as an other until the 16th century. This would make sense,  since other is a root and it's such a fundamental word whose etymology is certain.

They refer to nuncle as a late 16th-century regional variant, but don't say much more. Eric Partridge's sometimes reliable Origins claims that nuncle comes from an uncle, mine uncle (no mention of "Mon Oncle"),  and thine uncle. He also throws in nunks and nunky, neither of which are familiar to me, but they make me assume that nuncle, nunks, and nunky might have fallen out of how toddler nieces and nephews might have pronounced it. I can imagine it following a pattern of alliteration: niece, nephew, therefore nuncle (unless they were originally an eice and an ephew). The parenthetical comment is a joke.

Tmesis is a word worth getting to know in the context of this topic.

Coffee's ready.'

You might also enjoy prosthesis, epenthesis (excrescence and anaptyxis) and paragoge, as well as
aph(aer)esis, syncope and apocope. And let's not forget metathesis!

(This is gettin metaplasmic.)

[Dana]

Looks like Luc Ferrari is the runaway winner!

[some guy]

Yes, aphesis (see aphid, and not exactly interchangeable with aphaeresis) is how we get from another to nother. Partridge traces to the etymology of wig from petrus, and going through periwig by way of a "thoroughgoing aphesis" (and then on to Mornington Crescent). Not sure I buy it.

'

Ack! I've been out-erudited!! (If only I were home, with my well-thumbed Lanham....)

[knight66]

I don't buy any of that except for the Mornington Cres bit. I see the entries in the dictionary. A nother Americanism....lawks. 

Mike

[karlhenning]

(Are we supposed to guess which one's daid?)

[greg]

Luc Ferrari is the only one in the poll I've listened to- the rest I haven't even heard of.