on the other hand

[Victor]

I did not ask because I was too lazy to do a Google search. In fact, the
original source that I cited used "on the one side", which sounds
radically bad to my ear. To be honest, I cringe when I hear "on the one
side" as well, but it doesn't bother me quite as much as "on the one
side". Somewhere in that neighborhood is the Bushism, "September the
eleventh", which, to me, seems to be a blend. The former two are likely
unrelated to the latter. Also, with respect to the latter expression, I
most commonly hear it from non-native-English European speakers with
rather good command of the language. You mileage clearly may vary on all
fronts.

    VS-)

Mark Mandel wrote:
> I always use it. "On the one hand..., on the other hand..."
>
> More generally, here are some raw googit counts (non-personalized):
> about 157,000,000 for "on the one hand"
> about 11,300,000 for "on one hand"
> about 142,000,000 for "on the other hand"
>
> Mark Mandel
>
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 6:12 PM, Victor <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> How common is the use of definite article with "on one hand"/"on one side"?
>>
>> http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=d22fe4c9-6f8c-4c0d-93af-aed79ad3b467
>> _On the one side_, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and
>> conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims.
>>
>> Â  Â VS-)
>>
>> PS: The piece is worth reading in its own right, but not for linguistic
>> reasons.
>>

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