Why is the phrase "in other words" often used to clarify or rephrase a previous statement, instead of simply stating the clarification directly?
Is "in other words" grammatically correct?
in other words (synonym) | WordReference Forums
Your favourite transition words, synonyms, or phrases in academic writing?
Why do people often use the phrase 'in other words' when they want to say something in a different way instead of just saying the new way directly?
I guess I don't understand this because, in my native language, we don't do this a lot.
I've gone through multiple websites:
in other words meaning
in other words in a sentence
in other words synonyms
Can someone explain to me why and how I should use this?
I'm unable to find anything online. Someone just said it and I thought it sounded strange (even though I've heard it a billion times in my life).
It's like it's treating "Other words" as a compound noun. I'm not a grammarian so I'm just guessing. But "other words would be..." makes sense to me, and "in alternate words" makes sense to me, but you wouldn't use other adjectives like "in further words".
Instead of saying "another approach is," you wouldn't say "in other approaches"
Hard to explain, but it just seems like a strange phrase.