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Why doesn't an equivalent of elsewhere for the case of time exist? Is there an alternative, easier way to say that, so that its existence has been unnecessary? "Fertility might have fallen among women born between 1940 and 1960, and remained unchanged elsewhen." Would that be an example of an appropriate use of that word, if it were to exist? |
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Elsewhen did exist in English; the OED has several entries, the most recent from 1570, the earliest from 1418:
There are also entries for elsehow, elsewhat, elsewhence, elsewhither, and elsewho, plus elsewards and elsewise, and like elsewhen, all are marked as obsolete. The location-related words seem to have survived the longest, with elsewhence and elsewhither persisting into the 19th century and regionally, and of course elsewhere remaining in common usage. Why those words fell out of fashion is hard to say, of course. Perhaps English speakers had more use for words for other locations than for other times— in the same way, we have anywhere and everywhere, but anywhen and everywhen are at best non-standard. On the other hand, we also lost otherwhere, except in some dialects, perhaps those which still use otherwhat and othersome and otherward; the OED doesn't specify. In the situation you propose, the only single word I would have applied is otherwise, a highly flexible word that simply means in some additional or different way— another time, another place, another manner. Or, you could always be explicit and say at other times or in other years or other than this period. |
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There actually is, or perhaps better said was, such a word in the adverb othertimes. However, the OED says that othertimes is now obsolete. It was not uncommon in Early Modern English up through the 18th century, but its use declined during the first half of 19th century. It tends to oppose sometimes.
This adverb eventually came to be used as a noun serving as a prepositional object for in and at, and finally people gave up and wrote a space between the two words:
Which is where we stand today. People may well ask “why” something did or did not happen in language, but most such questions have no possible concrete answer. The historical record shows many combinations with any, other, some, when, time, times that are now rarely seen. Combining the old ones with the extant ones, and disregarding hyphens, the list of such adverbs is very long:
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"Easier" is somewhat subjective. It could be about brevity or clarity. You know, the interrogative words also have another modifier -ever, which has survived to modern times. This pairs nicely with the stand-alone word else:
In your example sentence, it would work fine with a slight reordering:
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