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_carbyau_yesterday at 8:10 AM1 replyview on HN

SciFi novel "The Mote in God's Eye." has aliens with three hands.

One "gripping hand" kinda coming out the gut, and two dextrous hands for detail work. Led to abuse of English language with: On the one hand... On the other hand... On the gripping hand...


Replies

IIsi50MHzyesterday at 6:31 PM

Which is reall just a patch for the problem of "On one hand… On the other hand… …On the OTHER hand…".

It's worth noting that the one-other-gripping pattern seems meant to convey two considerations and end with the strongest of three.

The English one-other pattern doesn't necessarily require the second consideration to dominate. They could be equal, or they might merely introduce concerns that haven't been evaluated to conclusion yet.

Alas, one-other-gripping doesn't seem to generalise to more than three concerns.