on the other hand

• OTOH

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on the other hand

1. (sequence, idiomatic) From another point of view.

   Well yes, it was quite a good bargain; on the other hand, do we really need one?

   • 1873, James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism:

     Its external relations, on the one hand to dynamics, and on the other to heat, light, chemical action, and the constitution of bodies, seem to indicate the special importance of electrical science as an aid to the interpretation of nature.

   • 1921 [1919], H. L. Mencken, chapter 1, in The American Language, 2nd edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, →OCLC:

     Thus the study of the language he is supposed to use, to the average American, takes on a sort of bilingual character. On the one hand, he is grounded abominably in a grammar and syntax that have always been largely artificial, even in the country where they are supposed to prevail, and on the other hand he has to pick up the essentials of his actual speech as best he may.

   • 1950, Bertrand Russell, acceptance speech for Nobel Prize in Literature

     I maintain, however, on the one hand, that there are few occasions upon which large bodies of men, such as politics is concerned with, can rise above selfishness, while, on the other hand, there are a very great many circumstances in which populations will fall below selfishness, if selfishness is interpreted as enlightened self-interest.

   • 1961 January, “The North-East London electrification of the Great Eastern Line”, in Trains Illustrated, page 19:

     The host of business travellers between Bishops Stortford and London would scarcely take kindly to devious routing via the Southbury line; on the other hand, it is not desirable that they should overcrowd the business trains to and from Cambridge.

• but, however, still, then again, yet, conversely, vice versa, on the flipside

• on the one hand
• on the gripping hand (fanspeak slang)
• on the third hand (jocular)