Single-word Requests – Natural Ways to Express ‘Contra-positively’ in Writing

single-word-requestswriting

I often see 'conversely' being used when the meaning is to express the 'contra-positive'.

I know that the contra-positive of a statement is logically equivalent to the statement, but they're still different formulations in natural language.

Question(s): In general, is there a more natural sounding word to use instead of 'contra-positively' in (informal but possibly academic) written English? If not technically, then what could be a good alternative?

(Just as a made up example:
If I am standing up, then I am awake. Contra-positively, If I am not awake, then I am not standing up.

'Conversely' would sound natural but feels wrong since it has such an otherwise specific meaning (in logic). Perhaps it is used more loosely in natural English, and I am being overly cautious.

None of the often proposed synonyms of different thesaurus searches feels natural to put instead, e.g. 'contrary' or 'oppositely'.)

Edits: The comments about my initial example being bad are all fair, which is why I (after several edits) instead chose to reformulate the question completely. (It was really more what got me thinking than a good example anyway.) I hope it is a bit more clear now. Also, I think the answers already provided are sufficient.

Best Answer

The phrase on the other hand is used to introduce a statement differing with one just made in some unspecified way:

on the other hand

in a way that is different from the first thing you mentioned:

  • My husband likes classical music – I, on the other hand, like all kinds.
  • [My husband likes classical music – I, on the other hand, don't.]
  • [My husband likes classical music – I, on the other hand, play in an orchestra.]
  • [My husband likes classical music – I, on the other hand, like cricket. So we toss up to see who gets to watch the television when there's a conflict.]

[Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary] [other examples added]

Related Topic