Govinda's Guide to Grammar, Punctuation and Other Stuff

[Govinda]

Certainly.

The Passive Voice - Otherwise Known as Grammatically Correct Yoda Formation

As said above, clauses in English mostly go thus:

The cat (subject) climbed up (verb) the tree (object).

This structure is in the active voice, because the subject (our cat) is acting upon the object (the tree) in the way prescribed by the verb (climbed).

In the passive voice, it would read thus:

The tree (object) was climbed up (verb) by the cat (subject).


So, as opposed to the subject acting out the verb, the subject recieves the action prescribed in the verb in the passive voice.

Another example:

ACTIVE - Rainforest loggers have destroyed many of the habitats of indigenous species.

PASSIVE - The habitats of many indigenous species have been destroyed by rainforest loggers.


In the Active voice, the rainforest loggers are doing something - destroying habitats. They are the subject of this sentence, and they act upon the objects, the little mystery species.

In the Passive voice, they are recieving the action - the fact that the habitats have been destroyed comes first, and then we find out that it is the rainforest loggers who have done it. They have recieved the verb action rather than having performed it directly.

One of the major problems with the passive, and one of the reasons why it's one of the fastest ways to lose writing marks in an essay, is its inherent tendency towards ambiguity. This is where the WTFery comes in.

Take this sentence, in the Active Voice:

Scientists have conducted experiments to test the hypothesis.

In Passive:

Experiments have been conducted to test the hypothesis.


The passive one leaves us asking just who was responsible for said experiments. But it is as it should be in passive; the subject is receiving the action of the verb. It would be easy to add in a 'by scientists' to the passive sentence to answer that question, but it can be easy to forget when you're writing in passive.

Try this. You, o Native Speaker of your mother tongue, repeat these two sentences to yourself and decide which one sounds more normal:

The sound engineer will cue the music as the director takes the stage.

As the director takes the stage, the sound engineer will cue the music.

The first is Active, the second is Passive.

An easy rule of thumb is that if your subject ends up in the second half of the sentence, you've gone passive.

Well, that was Quite Serious. The only reason I can remember crap like this is because I study foreign language, and without a grounding in grammatical terms you're screwed.

As an aside, French voices are mental. They have at least 5, and they have moods too. Maybe one day I'll get into their subjunctive. My my, that is funtimes to the max.

I shall return after lunch. Lunch is important.