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conulyRight up there with "officer-involved shooting" and "mistakes were made"?
"So-and-so led police on a chase."
Have you ever heard that it takes two to tangle? Yeah, well, likewise it takes two to have a chase. You can't "lead police on a chase" unless the police first decide to chase you. Admittedly, in this case there may not have been much chance of averting disaster if the teen was already driving erratically when spotted, but that exact same phrasing is used when the driver's initial crime is "bad taillight" or anything else that could be just as easily handled by sending a ticket to their house. I mean, if you have their plates, why would you chase them for something stupid? Just get their address, send them a ticket, go eat a donut and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
The officer attempted to pull the vehicle over and a pursuit followed, Woodland police said.
No, the officer attempted to pull the vehicle over and then chose to pursue the car when the driver failed to stop. (Note: No comments about the passive voice. These aren't passives. They're just weaselly. Unnecessarily so, since in this particular case I'm not sure what alternative they had.)
"So-and-so led police on a chase."
Have you ever heard that it takes two to tangle? Yeah, well, likewise it takes two to have a chase. You can't "lead police on a chase" unless the police first decide to chase you. Admittedly, in this case there may not have been much chance of averting disaster if the teen was already driving erratically when spotted, but that exact same phrasing is used when the driver's initial crime is "bad taillight" or anything else that could be just as easily handled by sending a ticket to their house. I mean, if you have their plates, why would you chase them for something stupid? Just get their address, send them a ticket, go eat a donut and pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
The officer attempted to pull the vehicle over and a pursuit followed, Woodland police said.
No, the officer attempted to pull the vehicle over and then chose to pursue the car when the driver failed to stop. (Note: No comments about the passive voice. These aren't passives. They're just weaselly. Unnecessarily so, since in this particular case I'm not sure what alternative they had.)
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2023-04-10 04:51 am (UTC)"A pursuit followed" is an active voice construction. Something followed. What followed? A pursuit. The passive voice would be "The driver was followed by a pursuit" which, honestly, just skirts the edges of grammatical in my speech and probably everybody else's.
"Passive voice" does not mean "weaselly speech to hide accountability". There is no such thing as a hidden or sneaky passive. It's a grammatical term, not a judgment on people's word choices. "Mistakes were made" is a passive, but so is "guns were fired irresponsibly in every direction by every officer involved" and you can't say that hides the people responsible. It just topicalizes the guns.
And what else could they do? Use the fucking radio. You don't need to chase anyone anymore. Just alert other police to close a net around them. They can't outrun the radio.
I'm not sure adding more police is the solution to police.