Constant Content

Good day fellow CCers. I am just about finished with another article, but I'm having trouble with one particularly fussy sentence. Do you have some advice for me? I'll extend my gratitude in advance.

Here's the sentence:
"The muscle control required for a baby to speak, using his mouth, is more complex than the muscle control required for a baby to sign using his hands."

I originally wrote it from a more medically technical perspective talking about fine and gross motor control -- that sort of a thing. After reviewing it a few times I revised it to look as it does above, but I'm still not happy with its readability.

Regards,

- Patrick

After haggling with the sentence a bit, I came up with this instead:
"The oral muscle control that a baby requires for speech takes longer to develop than the hand control required for simple sign language."

I think it's clearer and flows better than the former wording.

Thoughts?

Looks good to me.

Yeah, I like the second one.

Me too. Good fix!

The facial muscle control?

Thanks again for the help! My article was accepted without complaint -- kind of a little thrill when it goes through so easily.

Now -- for that elusive first sale

Here's the sentence:
"The muscle control required for a baby to speak, using his mouth, is more complex than the muscle control required for a baby to sign using his hands."

Correction: The muscle control required for a baby to speak is more complex than that required for him(her) to sign using his hands.

Why you need 'using his mouth'? Does the baby speak using something else too? Why make it complex by mentioning muscle control and baby twice? Just strip those things down and you are good to go.

I think the reason "using his mouth" was in the original sentence was to clarify the difference between vocal/oral speech and speaking with hands. I can see why that phrase was in the original.

No, As long as we have a word to describe sign language (sign using hands), we should stick with the sense that 'speaking' is a mouth activity. In any other context, 'speaking' automatically takes the default, understood meaning. So I suppose you don't need 'using mouth' there. Just my suggestion. The Patrick suggestion looks fine to me as well.

How about:

"The muscle control required for a baby to vocalize speech is more complex than the manual deterity required for communicaing through sign language."

Only if it's 'dexterity' you meant.

heh, yeah! Where's the typocheck on this crazy thing?

Wouldn't it be interesting if Ed had to parse all the forum posts too?

PatrickMcdonnough wrote:
Here's the sentence:
"The muscle control required for a baby to speak, using his mouth, is more complex than the muscle control required for a baby to sign using his hands."
Regards,

- Patrick

I just signed on to CC last night and peaking into the forums today, so I know I'm a bit late on this one.

I would have gone with "The muscle control required for a baby to speak orally is more complex than the muscle control required for a baby to sign using his hands."

You could also leave out the second 'muscle control required' and say "more complex than that required for ..."