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I've literally never seen "OTOH" in my life. Anyhow, if you really feel your sentence can't do without it you can say "conversely" which is pretty short and clear.

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OTOH dates back to the 90s and has since remained very common in internet writing. It is more surprising that you've never seen it than that someone used it.

It also isn't an exact synonym of "conversely".

There aren't any exact synonyms in English.

I've been an extensive internet user for decades and I don't have it in memory, so I'm not sure how to feel about your assertion. I'm not the only person saying this.

> There aren't any exact synonyms in English.

I'm sure that depends on the tolerance. "assist" and "help"? "dog" and "canine"? "purchase" and "buy"?

I'm not just being pedantic, it's a fairly mainstream assertion in linguistics. I don't find those words synonymous. They have different performative content. I don't know if this applies to other languages.

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