Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

#1 is clearer and easier to understand. #2 is murky and includes the
unscientific language "have the same situation only while rising up
from a chair". Both are unsatisfactory, however. And without a proper
context, it's not possible to understand what is meant by "need a
larger trunk angle". Larger than what or larger than whose? My
assumption is that the elderly must bend forward more acutely than some
reference angle for both rising and siting, but the young (How young is
young? And were all these young people you tested structurally healthy
-- i.e., no broken legs or colostomy bags, etc?) must bend forward more
acutely when rising than when sitting.

There are a couple of problems here.

1. I would put all findings in the past tense:

    "Duncan's multiple range test showed".

2. I'd use "at any seat-height".

3. "need a larger trunk angle".

4. "when rising from or sitting down".

5. You probably need to say whether this difference was statistically
significant, e.g., "...needed a trunk angle significantly (P < 0.05)
larger than n degrees".

==>

"Duncan's multiple range test showed that, at any seat-height, the
elderly needed a trunk angle larger than n degrees when rising from and
sitting down on a chair, but that the young needed a trunk angle larger
than n' degrees only when rising from a chair."

I suspect that the reviewers of your manuscript will require it to be
revised by a native speaker of English before it can be published, if
the journal is British or North American, that is.

-
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan.
"...the human population is 90% gullible, violence-prone dipshits, ..."
Scott Adams, The Dilbert Blog, December 06, 2006
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/

The windcolor entity posted thusly:

There are no sentences above this one. There are two sentences below
it.

If you are referring to the sentences below, you probably wanted to
say "I'd like to express the meaning of the first of the two sentences
below, because I don't think it's concise, so I wrote the second
sentence to replace it."

I see you already have answers for the sentences themselves.

Thanks！I know how to write the sentence.

We are asked about:

A better way to avoid the repetition would be to say "but the young need
it only..."

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don't output HTML in your posts.

Brian

Possibilities include "...the young have the same need only while...",
or even simply "...but the young only while rising."  The final "up
from a chair" is unnecessary.  (Also, the "up" in "rising up" is not
only redundant but, I'd suggest, incorrect in context - I'd never use
that construction.  Although that could be a BrE reaction.)

Cheers - Ian
(BrE: Yorks., Notts., Hants.)

It depends on the audience but I'd go with 1.  The repetition of 'trunk
angle' reduces the chance of any misunderstanding. This assumes you're
writting a technical report and not trying for a Nobel in literature.

John Kane, Kingston ON Canada