Whole Nother

Today I will use my blog as a forum for trying to puzzle through the English language. My topic will be the phrase "whole nother". This is a frequently used phrase, as in "I have to wait a whole nother day to get paid" or "He needs a whole nother set of keys for his apartment". It just trips off the tongue. BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?? I suppose the "'nother" is supposed to be an abbreviation for "another" but "whole another" makes no sense whatsover. This must mean that our society has created a whole nother (see how I did that) word without even realizing it. However, I believe that nother actually is a stand in for the word "other". If so, why did we add an "N" to the word. Can we just go around adding N's to words all willy nilly? Or just words that start with a vowel? WHAT ARE THE RULES??? Who does one call to solve these sorts of mysteries?

For those of you out there in blog land thinking "Hmm...I wonder if she has to much time on her hands" the answer is an unequivocal yes.