Mike C

I just took you off my christmas card list.

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dwspig2

No, it's not so. Your second, "passive" sentence is actually an example of the "be" verb doing what it normally does - it links to coequal parts together. It acts more or less like an equal-sign.

I'm lazy. I=lazy.
All activity is irrelevant. All activity=irrelevant.

What you wrote there were subjects that were described with a predicate adjective.

The passive voice, if you would have read my post, uses a form of the "be" verb and a past participle. A past participle is "a participle that typically expresses completed action, that is traditionally one of the principal parts of the verb, and that is traditionally used in English in the formation of perfect tenses in the active voice and of all tenses in the passive voice."

Why I underlined, bold-faced, and italicized the word "verb" is because a past participle must be a verb form. That is why "lazy" and "irrelevant" do not complete the passsive construction above; they are not verb forms.

There are three - I think - principle parts of the verb. The infinitive (to go), the first person past tense (I went), and the past participle (gone). Using these forms you can form all the other verb forms out there - active, passive, subjunctive, imperative, and interrogative.

Azmakna

thank you all so much for taking the time to explain passive and active fellas! much appreciated. what is subjunctive, imperative and interrogative? typed this out of a texy book last night:

The voice of the verb shows whether the grammatical subject performs the action or is acted upon. A careful writer chooses active voice over passive voice whenever possible. Because active voice expresses a direct statement, it is preferred.

• ACTIVE VOICE --The police officer (doer of the action) stopped the red car (receiver of the action).
• PASSIVE VOICE--The red car (receiver of the action) was stopped by the police officer (doer of the action).

Notice that the active voice sentence places the “doer” of the action in the grammatical subject slot and the “receiver” of the action (that which is being acted upon) is placed in the object slot. The passive voice is just the opposite. The “receiver” of the action is in the subject slot, and the “doer” of the action is placed in the object slot. A be verb is also added. (HINT: If a be verb is NOT followed by an -ing verb, the sentence is passive.)

• ACTIVE VOICE--John (doer in subject slot) read the entire novel (receiver in object slot).
• PASSIVE VOICE--The entire novel (receiver in subject slot) was read by John (doer in the object slot).

In the active voice sentence, the original “doer” is John. John is in the subject slot. In the passive voice sentence, the “doer” of the sentence, John, is placed in the object slot by using by. The original “doer” becomes the object of the preposition by. The grammatical subject of the passive voice sentence--novel--is the original object of the active verb read.
Although active voice is preferred, there are a few instances when the use of passive voice is acceptable:

• If the receiver or the action needs to be emphasized more than the doer of the action, passive voice is acceptable.
• Example: The woman was killed by a truck. The woman needs to be emphasized more than the truck.
• If the doer of the action is unknown or unimportant, passive voice is acceptable.
• Example: The car I wanted was bought yesterday (by. . .). The buyer (doer) or the car is unimportant. The fact that the car was bought is important.
• Example: The clerk at the Around-the-Clock Food Store was abducted.
• Example: No names or phone numbers were ever provided.
• Example: The speed limit on interstate highways has been increased.

Avoid awkward use of the passive voice:

• My abilities have been noted by my peers and proven in many instances.

Do not shift from active to passive voice within a passage:

• I went through five different majors when I was in college. Each major was chosen quickly, without proper time for judgment.
• My husband and I recently bought a new home. We purchased it through a very reliable real estate agency which we also chose as the rental agency for our old home. Once the realtor initiated the rental process, the lease agreement was reviewed in detail and the security deposit, along with information about refunds, was outlined. Deposits were made; agreements were signed and notarized; and the property was rented.

Remember: In formal writing, active voice is preferred. However, when the doer of the action is unknown or irrelevant, passive voice may be used.

• Passive: We were seated on the front row. (Doer unknown)
• Active: The usher seated us on the front row.
• Passive: Your call will be answered in the order in which it was received (Doer irrelevant)
• Active: An operator will answer your call in the order in which we received it.
• Passive: Prizes will be awarded to the winners.
• Passive: The winners will be given prizes.
• Active: The judges will award prizes to the winners.

In this formula, the tense is found in the be verb, and the -en form is found on the main verb:

• Past Tense + BE + -en + Verb

Example: For the verb help, (past tense + BE = was (-en + help = helped). Thus, the passive voice is was helped.

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Mike C

Oh dear. Someone's had a humour bypass.

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Joe Moore

There is nothing inherently wrong with passive voice. Just as there is nothing inherently wrong with paintings of Elvis on black velvet or dogs playing poker.

I consider active voice to be easier to read because, in most cases, it takes fewer words to say the same thing. Fewer words means the eye travels a shorter distance to receive the same amount of information. This is not to say that writers should entirely avoid the passive voice. In the CRAFT of writing, passive voice is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary. But if you are a beginning writer, forming good habits such as trying to write in a direct manner with active voice will make your writing crisper, easier to read, and less fatiguing on the reader.

I would suggest that everyone who has not done so go out and purchase THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by Strunk and White. You will learn more about writing in its 95 pages than you can possibly imagine, including a section on active and passive voice. Good luck.

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Mike C

Time for your medication, Mr Moore.

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Joe Moore

Or just a good, long nap.

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valeca

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I'm here.

Dawnstorm

Beware of the text-book. The facts are usually right, but the presentation is tendentious and misleading. A bit of text-book criticism:

Huh? Either vague or nonsense. And it contains (hehe) a passive voice ("is preferred").

They don't tell you what they think a direct statement is. If I tell you that my wallet was stolen, I'd argue that that's a direct statement. I'm telling you directly that my wallet was stolen. Is "Someone stole my wallet!" more direct than "My wallet was stolen!" Really? How?

They don't tell us. They just repeat a (silly, IMO) cliché.

Bah! Forget the hint. It leads to examples such as "The room was cold." So many things can follow a "be-verb" that are neither passive voice, nor -ing verbs that this hint is misleading.

This is clumsy (though not wrong). It suggests, if misread, that "John" transforms from the "doer" to the "object". That's not true. "John" is the doer in both the active and the passive sentence. (The grammatical term is "agent"; the receiver of the action is usually called "patient".) The section should be rephrased:

In the active voice sentence, the original subject is John. John is the "doer" of the verb. In the passive voice sentence, the subject of the sentence, John, is placed in the object slot by using by. The original subject becomes the object of the preposition by, but he still remains the "doer". The grammatical subject of the passive voice sentence--novel--is the original object of the active verb read. In both sentences it is the "doee" of the verb "read".

The confusion of "subject" with "doer"/"agent" and "object" with "doee"/"patient" is one of the main reasons people get confused I think, so I thought it's important to point it out. It's not a big thing in itself, but it seems to lead to lots of confusion.

The points they're making are good; the way they word them is not. Active voice is preferred? Really?

The distinction between "active voice" and "passive voice" is only really when useful when a verb takes an object (--> transitive verbs). There are plenty of verbs that have no passive form. Grammarians are divided on whether they then can be said to have an "active voice".

Example:

This looks good. --> [!Good is looked by this.!] Argh!

The sun is shining. --> [!It is being shone by the sun.!] Um...

If these verbs don't have a passive voice, can you call all of their uses "active voice"? (The discussion is rather complicated, and besides the point, and there's no definite answer anyway, but people agree that there are different verb types which relate in different ways to grammatical voice.)

So why do we prefer active voice? When do we prefer active voice? When do we even speak of active voice? (Again, they're being vague and are repeating [silly, IMO] clichés.)

[Ex.: Prepositional objects are interesting. Some can be turned into "passive voice subjects", but not all. And it's often not clear where we draw the line.

He's looking at the picture. --> The picture is being looked at.
You can rely on Joe. --> Joe can be relied on.
Somebody has slept in my bed. --> My bed has been slept in.
Trolls don't exist in this world. --> [This world isn't existed in by trolls.] Um, not really.

Try a few of those and see how they sound.]

Avoid awkward use of anything. And, by the way, why is this sentence awkward? (Hard to tell without context, but there's nothing particularly wrong with it, I find.)

Matter of taste. Plus, I doubt that for people who don't like passive voice the problem lies in the shift. Also, "passive voice" isn't a feature of "passages" in the first place. They ought to elaborate more. As it is, I don't feel they have a point.

That's nonsense. In scientific writing, especially when talking about experimental set-ups etc., passive voice is often preferred. Just read a few papers. (Or read the above sentence. It's formal writing and contains not a single active voice verb. Oh, the irony. )

***

Not a bad passage, but be aware that they're pushing their own tastes in the way they word things.

***

Imperative: loosly speaking, orders:

You give me the book. --> Give me the book.

Interrogative: loosly speaking, questions.

I give you the book. --> Did I give you the book?

Subjunctive: Oh dear, that's even more complex than "passive voice", and to make matters worse, it's rarely marked grammatically, so it looks just like a normal sentence.

The subjunctive expresses "irreality" (requests, hypotheses etc.).

I am a cat. (No, I'm not.) --> I wish I were a cat. (If only I were a cat! etc.)
He pays attention. (No he doesn't.) --> I wish he paid attention.

Notice that the subjunctive looks just like past tense. The only difference is the verb "to be". The past tense is "I was", the subjunctive is "I were". (There's no difference for "you", "we", and "they", though.) The subjunctive is often used in the if-clause of a conditional sentence:

If I were a cat, life would be easy.

There are different forms of subjunctive (the above is sometimes called "past-subjunctive"); it's really quite complex, so I won't go into that here.

***

Rightly so. He missed all those other evil passives in your posts! Sloppy people deserve no Christmas cards.

Mike C

They were intentional. There's a difference between writing for information and for entertainment.

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Azmakna

dawnstorm. of what help is it to take good general advice and discredit it. i for one know that there are no hard and fast rules, but it's nice to have a starting point.

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Dawnstorm

I know. I was kidding.

Well, it's perhaps not as good as it is general?

If "discrediting" is all you see in the post, it's of no help. Just ignore the post.

lin

Active: I am a very macho top.

Passive: I am a cute, controlling bottom.

lin

HOLY SHIT!!!! Did you also change it to wine? You're my new God.

Voodoo

I've no experience with publishing, I'm ignorant of it.
I write the first thing that comes to mind, and while I have good grammar, I barely know what the hell a participle is. Just by reading, you can pick up an intuition of sentence structure- I don't care if it's active or passive, so long as it fits the mood.

I can change wine into piss, but I can't change piss into wine, Lin.