How do you improve this stringy sentence?

Question

This is an exercise from Longman Writing Series: 4. We have to correct this "stringy" sentence:

Last-born children, on the other hand, often have little responsibility, and they may be pampered as the “baby” of the family, but they are the smallest, and they have to get people to like them, so they often develop superior social skills.

How do I improve this? Here is my answer:

Last-born children, on the other hand, often have little responsibility. They may be pampered as the “baby” of the family, but they are the smallest, and they have to get people to like them, so they often develop superior social skills.

However, I don't think "BUT they are the smallest" works here.

They may be pampered as the “baby” of the family, but being the smallest, they have to get people to like them. Thus they often develop superior social skills. — Tinfoil Hat, Sep 17 '22 at 14:25
What makes you think that belongs here in ELU, rather than somewhere like SE Writing… or EL Learners? — Robbie Goodwin, Sep 18 '22 at 18:08

fev · Answer 1 · 2022-09-17T11:19:02.900

Proofreading is off-topic here, so I will only deal with your doubts about but. In your sentence,

They may be pampered as the “baby” of the family, but they are the smallest, and they have to get people to like them, so they often develop superior social skills.

but¹ is correctly used to introduce contrast. The problem is just that the focus of the contrast is stringy, as you say:

...but X and Y, and so Z.

To make the contrast more obvious and more connected, using being instead of are might be handy, making the sentence look like

... but, because X, Y, and so Z.

Logically, X is the reason for Y, while Z is the consequence of Y, and it is better to make these connections clear.

... but/yet, being the smallest, they have to get people to like them, and so they often develop superior social skills.

1_{Stylistically, yet may be a better choice.}

Thank you very much for the suggestion. – Ludwig Gershwin Sep 17 '22 at 11:21 — Ludwig Gershwin, Sep 17 '22 at 11:21

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 18 '22 at 04:49

0

Last-born children, on the other hand, often have little responsibility and may be pampered as the “baby” of the family. But, since they are the smallest and have to get people to like them, they often develop superior social skills.

answered Sep 18 '22 at 04:49

Dan

673

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 18 '22 at 05:03

On the other hand last-born children often have little responsibility; being pampered as the ‘baby’ of the family, and being the smallest, they are often compelled to get people to like them and therefore it is common for them to develop enhanced social skills.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 18 '22 at 05:06

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"but" can be replaced with "nonetheless", "yet", "still", "but as", "yet as", "still as", "but, as", "yet, as", "still, as" to get better sounding sentences. "yet, as" and "still, as" sounds better to me than the others.

answered Sep 18 '22 at 05:06

banuyayi

1,900

How do you improve this stringy sentence?

4 Answers4