First, I will give three sentences.
- Your information will not be used for any other purpose than those specified here.
- Your information will not be used for any purpose other than those specified here.
- Your information will not be used for any other purpose other than those specified here.
Below are my questions.
Q1: Compared with sentence 1, sentence 2 changes the position of the word 'other', do these two have the same meaning? According to some English dictionaries, 'other than' is a phrase, and so I think 'other' and 'than' should not be separated. However, after Googling, I found expressions like 'any other something than something' is more popular. For example, 'Is there any other option than abortion' was widely used, where as 'Is there any option other than abortion' was rare.
In the preceding example, why the 'other' in 'any option other than abortion' is moved forward to form 'any other option than abortion'? Maybe the author wanted to emphasize 'other', so 'any' and 'other' were put together.
Q2: Is sentence 3 correct? In this sentence, there are two 'other's. I feel that this sentence is very odd, although there is no grammatical problem.
Best Answer
Versions 1 and 2 are both acceptable and equivalent. While other than is a set phrase, that doesn't mean you have to use it. It tends to be used more in sentences without any, e.g.
Version 3 is wrong, because the repetition of other is redundant. I suspect it's more likely to occur in spoken form than written, because it's easy to forget that you already said other and then fall into the set phrase.