other

other

1. For each other, see each ³.

2. other than.

When other is used as a pronoun or adjective, use of other than is straightforward and causes no comment:

• I'd never known anything other than hard times —D. Dears, 1974.

Objections are raised when other in this phrase is forced into the role of adverb (which it does not otherwise have), and Fowler (1926) regarded it as ‘ungrammatical and needless’ when a genuine adverb, otherwise, is available; so in the following example he would have urged use of otherwise than in place of other than:

• Other than at football matches or on coach journeys, people sing less spontaneously than in previous generations —T. Portsmouth, 1992.

However, the grammar of other than is not always so clear-cut, as the following example shows:

• I married her…but it never even occurred to me that our marriage would be other than a marriage in name only —A. Roudybush, 1972.

Is other here an adjective linked to marriage or an adverb linked to be? (The answer is a bit of both.) In AmE, this use goes unnoticed; in BrE it is increasingly common and generally unexceptionable, and often more idiomatic than the awkward alternative otherwise than, but readers should be aware of the caveat attached to it in more pedantic circles.