4 ms·
> My English teacher said "on another hand" wasn't acceptable. You might be deducted point in a situation like TOEFL exam. That is likely because 'on the other
by Freak_NL 7y ago
> My English teacher said "on another hand" wasn't acceptable. You might be deducted point in a situation like TOEFL exam.
That is likely because 'on the other hand' is what is known as an idiom; a fixed saying. Even if some people are advocating for change of certain idioms, as a (second language) student of a language you are ill-advised to take the liberty of promoting such a novel phrasing, because people may find it hard to tell if you are making a mistake (and that they should adjust their language to your perceived level) or are in fact advocating a different way of saying things.
When taking an exam you are of course expected to use only language that is currently seen as obviously correct, because the examiner cannot tell the difference either.
> "on another hand"
This seems silly. You use on the other hand to contrast two viewpoints. There are other idioms for enumerating more than two.
- ergocoder 7y ago> This seems silly. You use on the other hand to contrast two viewpoints. I remember (from a psychology book, actually) that the reasoning is: what you say impacts what you think. You want to compare two viewpoints. But you arrogantly think that these are the only 2 viewpoints that can possibly exist. If you keep using "on the other hand", you will be inclined to see things as black and white. It's a valid argument, though one might wonder how much wording impacts our internal mind.
- stordoff 7y ago> You use on the other hand to contrast two viewpoints. There are other idioms for enumerating more than two. I sometimes find myself using "on the other hand" to contrast three or more view points, and end up saying "on the other hand" twice. Occasionally, I'll use "on one hand...on the other hand...on another hand/on a third hand".