Listen up.

[conuly]

"Passive voice" does not mean "any construction I think is deliberately vague".

"Palestinians died" is in the active voice, even if you think it should read "Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers" (which, fittingly, is a passive voice.) It's weaselly, but it's not a passive. (Or, on the flipside, "violence broke out" isn't a passive either, even if you think it should say "the Palestinians attacked the Israelis", but at least the suggested correction is also in the active voice.)

"Democrats allowed this situation [of migrant separation] to escalate" is an outright lie, but that doesn't make it a passive voice construction either.

"Don't use the passive voice!!!" is an absurd little bugaboo, but if you're going to religiously adhere to it you can at least learn how to properly identify passive and active clauses.

Comments

[redbird]

My usual "no really" example for this is that "President Kennedy was assassinated" is in the passive voice, not at all vague, and puts the focus on Kennedy, which is where it's likely wanted.

"Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President Kennedy" is active, and also valid, but if you're more concerned about the effects of the assassination than on the volumes of "did Oswald act alone? What was his motivation?" stuff you're more likely to want Kennedy to be the subject of the sentence.

[conuly]

Thank you for that wonderful example!

[redbird]

You're welcome.

[novel_machinist]

That IS wonderful. Thank you.

[spikethemuffin]

PREACH.

[nostalgia]

is passive when the verb happens to the subject?

[malkingrey]

Yep. As the grammar mavens put it, the subject "receives the action" of the verb.

It could be worse. Some languages also have a middle voice, which I don't even pretend to understand.

[nostalgia]

i know such proper grammar terms as "the thing that does the verb" and "the thing the verb happens to" XD

[malkingrey]

Right. The passive voice is a grammatical construction, not a moral choice.

(The so-called "agentless passive", where the "by X" part of the construction is omitted, is used a lot for responsibility-dodging of the "mistakes were made" variety, but that's the fault of the speaker, not the grammar. There are times when the identity of X is either unknown or irrelevant or both, and the agentless passive is the appropriate voice in those cases.)

[redbird]

Yes. Going back to my example above, if the sentence was "Olof Palme was assassinated," it could be expanded to something like "Olof Palme was assassinated by a still-unidentified gunman," but active voice wouldn't be enough to identify the killer. Active voice produces something like "an unidentified assassin shot Olof Palme," which is useful if the writer wants to call attention to the fact that the crime hasn't been solved, rather than to the victim, but I think "the prime minister has been shot" is a more likely and more emphatic sentence than "someone shot the prime minister." Unless it's so soon after the assassination that you want to convey "so be careful, there's an unidentified assassin somewhere in the city."

[larryhammer]

*copy editor hat ON*

WORD

[alexseanchai]

preach

[silveradept]

Yes, thank you. I would much rather complain about a construction that tries to avoid or shift blame than whether or not it employs a passive voice.

[greghousesgf]

Passive voice can be more effective depending on what's being said. I don't agree with the idea of never using it at all.

[the_siobhan]

Huh. I have learned things today.

[sabotabby]

The rule I teach my kids is this: If you can add "by zombies" at the end, it's passive voice.

[siderea]

I was going to say! That essay was much too complicated; the "if you can 'by zombies' to the end" test is much more concise and elegant.

[pauamma]

"This morning, on my way to the secret government research lab, I passed by zombies".

[sabotabby]

Okay, good point.

[deird1]

What an excellent description.

[adrian_turtle]

I like to distinguish between the "passive exonerative," and other cases of passive voice.
"Kennedy was assassinated" is passive voice.
"Both were injured in a police-involved shooting," is passive exonerative.

[conuly]

Police-involve shooting is a bullshit phrase no matter how it's used and should be killed with fire.

[adrian_turtle]

Well, yes. I agree.
Before that particular phrase became popular*, the ideal example of passive exonerative was "mistakes were made."

*"The phrase became popular" is technically active voice, even as it conceals all the journalists who made it popular by quoting police reports so uncritically.