Passive words

Happened to.

As part of a thought or dialogue, it is perfectly acceptable. As part of a narrative, it is passive, because it shows the author has no confidence in what s/he's writing. Whenever the author described the door as "happening to be jammed shut," or the main character just "happened to land with no injuries at all," or the baby just "happened to survive drowning," I feel like the author is being lazy, almost as if s/he's trying to have everything happen because of a stroke of luck.

I thought passive was not just in the word but in the construction of the sentence. 'Jenny was sad' is not passive as far as I'm concerned. I consider 'The fence was jumped by the dog' is passive compared with the active 'The dog jumped the fence'. If I'm wrong please tell me.

Mumut said:

I thought passive was not just in the word but in the construction of the sentence. 'Jenny was sad' is not passive as far as I'm concerned. I consider 'The fence was jumped by the dog' is passive compared with the active 'The dog jumped the fence'. If I'm wrong please tell me.

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That's what I thought passive was too. I mean, 'was' and 'were' are just the past tense of 'is.' Since when are auxiliary verbs passive? News to me! How are you supposed to write anything in past tense without them?

Also, in some cases the passive works. Very rarely, but it does. It just depends on what you want the focus of the sentence to be, IMO.

How to distinguish active and passive voice

A verb is in passive voice if the subject of the sentence is acted upon by the verb.

A verb is in active voice if the subject is the agent or the actor of the verb.

Many times a passive verb will include an auxiliary verb (was or were). But auxiliary verbs also have other functions, so the presence of an auxiliary verb is not a reliable indication of passive voice.

A good way to distinguish passive voice from active voice is to ask two questions:

• Who or what is the subject of the sentence?
• Who or what performs the action (the verb) of the sentence?

If the answers are the same, the verb is in active voice. If the answers differ, the verb is in passive voice.

Example 1: Jeff was smoking his third cigarette of the day.

Who is the subject of the sentence? Jeff. Who is the actor (who was smoking)? Jeff. They're the same, so that's active voice, even though the verb includes an auxiliary was.

Example 2: Roger Clemens was booed by Red Sox fans.

Who is the subject? Roger Clemens. Who is the actor (who did the booing)? Red Sox fans. The subject is not the actor in the sentence, so the verb is in passive voice.

Dale

Hollan said:

Also, in some cases the passive works. Very rarely, but it does. It just depends on what you want the focus of the sentence to be, IMO.

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That's right. If the main focus of the story is John, then it's best to say 'John jumped the fence'. But if you're saying a lot about the fence, you migh say, 'And that is the fence that was jumped by John'.

As you say, not often used but helpful at times.

Lord, I hate all the bad press the supremely useful verb "to be" is always getting from those who don't know what the passive voice is but who sling that passive slander around like a spiked flail. End of rant.

Another use of the verb "to be" often confused with the passive voice is the progressive tense:

Christina is refilling the catsup bottles in the back room. She has been refilling them for hours now.

Larry was running full-tilt down the hill. He had been running full-tilt down the previous hill, but the smell of donuts from the bakery stopped him halfway.

Aja will have been writing her novel for four years on her next birthday. Or she would have been writing it for four years on her next birthday if she, um, hadn't already finished it.

"Were" and "was" are not passive, not necessarily.

I was a kid. They were unkind.

Neither sentence is passive.

Passive voice when something is done to someone else -- the object of the action comes first:

He was killed. They were beaten. Mary was hit by Jack.


I think what you're talking about is not "passive words" but "weak" verbs. "To be" words are considered weak. They're "telling" and not "showing" and can be easily replaced by a strong verb.

If only the Star Wars scriptwriters heeded the "do not use to be verbs" advice!

"Luke, I act as your father."

It's not just individual words, but overall story that needs to be active. Watch for things happening TO the pov character, rather than the character acting. Make the pov character the hero/subject (rather than the wimpy object) of both the scene and the sentences.

JD

The word "passive" gets used in two different ways to describe problems in writing, and the verb "to be" is another issue yet. Dale Emery gives you a good description of the passive voice, which is useful sometimes but not something you want cropping up a lot because it's a little wordy and measurably harder to take in when you conduct empirical research on tech writing.

JanDarby spells out the other way a story can be passive, ie the MC can be passive rather than active. Readers usually like an active character more.

The verb "to be" is, as Phael says, very useful. It's neither active nor passive, because those terms only apply to transitive verbs, ie verbs than convey action from an actor to a receiver. "To be" verbs on their own (not used to form verb tenses such as the progressive) indicate a state of being. And that can be problematic because it's static. But you're going to mess up your writing if you try to carve "to be" out of your prose because it's "bad."

This is a little long but does a good job of defining passive. I have the whole thing but can't remember where I found it.

Defining the passive voice

A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. That is, the one performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence. To rephrase a familiar joke:\

Why was the road crossed by the chicken?

The chicken is the actor in this sentence, but the road is the grammatical subject. The more familiar phrasing places the actor as the subject--a subject doing something: A chicken (actor/doer) crossing the road (object). We use active verbs to represent that "doing," whether it be crossing roads, proposing ideas, arguing arguments, or invading houses (more on that shortly). Passive constructions are easy to spot; look for a form of "to be" (is, are, am , was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle. (The past participle is a form of the verb often, but not always, ending in "-ed." Some exceptions to the "-ed" rule are words like "paid" and "driven.") Here's a sure-fire formula for identifying the passive voice:

form of "to be" + past participle = passive voice

For example:

The metropolis has been scorched by the dragon's fiery breath.

When her house was invaded, Penelope had to think of ways to delay her remarriage.

**NOTE: the passive voice is marked by a form of "to be" + the past participle--not a form of "have" alone + the past participle, as some students believe. So don't let the combination of "have" and "to be" fool you. In the next section, we discuss why you often want to avoid using the passive voice, but let's briefly look at how to change passive constructions into active ones. You can usually just switch the order, making the actor and
subject one--putting the doer up front:

The dragon scorched the metropolis with his fiery breath.

After suitors invaded Penelope's house, she had to think of ways to fend them off.

To repeat, the key to identifying the passive voice is to look for both a form of "to be" and a past participle, which usually, but not always, ends in "-ed."

The "to be" verbs, Was, were and so on, are highly useful, and you shouldn't stop using them. The whole active/passive problem is a problem regarding "inverse copulas, (disambiguation)" and is about sentence construction more than verbs, but certain verbs are used more often in copulas than others. The "to be" verbs. In an inverse copular sentence, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula

A passive sentence is when the subject is in the predicate "area" of the sentence, making the predicate the subject (somehow). Many languages like Russian have endings on their nouns, so their placement in sentences is not as touchy as English, which has no endings. The gun was fired by Tom, is a passive sentence, but I consider it readable. Passive sentences are often readable. Many times they are used in organizational and technical writing in order for those organizations to duck responsibility for doing something. In many cases people who edit management documents need to leave passive sentences in if this is the preferred style of (weasel) writing for that company.


This is the test:

You can generally tell between a copula and an action verb by adding the verb "to seem" or "to be" in its place.

Example of an Action Verb: Sam looks at lettuce. Sam seems at lettuce? Sam is at lettuce? The latter two don't make sense, so "looks" in this case is being used as an action verb.

Example of a Copula: Sam looks happy. Sam seems happy? Sam is happy? The latter two make sense; "looks" is used as a copula in this case.

Do you see that looks in both cases is used? One is used as an active verb, one is used as a copula.

Is the sentence: "Beth Hoffman knew she was being watched." passive?
Beth isn't the one doing the action (the watching in this case) but it sounds okay to my ears.

I thought to change it to: "Beth Hoffman felt herself being watched." But the word, "felt" sounds weird to me.

gypsyscarlett said:

Is the sentence: "Beth Hoffman knew she was being watched." passive?
Beth isn't the one doing the action (the watching in this case) but it sounds okay to my ears.

I thought to change it to: "Beth Hoffman felt herself being watched." But the word, "felt" sounds weird to me.

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The main clause (Beth Hoffman knew) isn't passive. "Beth" is the subject and "knew" is the verb. She's the one doing the knowing. I think it's an intransitive verb (ie neither active nor passive) but someone more knowledgeable than I will probably step up and tell you better. The subordinate clause (she was being watched) is indeed passive. I'd leave it that way.

The only kind of editing I'd do is maybe be more specific about what she feels that equals knowing: The skin on her back prickles or whatever.

gypsyscarkett: Yes, I would say that that sentence is passive. "Beth Hoffman knew Mr. X was watching her" would be active I think. HOWEVER, I think that is one of the rare cases where a passive construction actually works better, as the identity of the doer is hidden.

And of course, if something sounds wrong, don't write that just for the sake of following a rule. Intuition and common sense trumps all rules. If they tell you the sentence is weird, it IS.

dawinsor said:

The main clause (Beth Hoffman knew) isn't passive. "Beth" is the subject and "knew" is the verb. She's the one doing the knowing. I think it's an intransitive verb (ie neither active nor passive) but someone more knowledgeable than I will probably step up and tell you better. The subordinate clause (she was being watched) is indeed passive. I'd leave it that way.

The only kind of editing I'd do is maybe be more specific about what she feels that equals knowing: The skin on her back prickles or whatever.

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The prickles do come.

thank you for your help.

Exir said:

gypsyscarkett: Yes, I would say that that sentence is passive. "Beth Hoffman knew Mr. X was watching her" would be active I think. HOWEVER, I think that is one of the rare cases where a passive construction actually works better, as the identity of the doer is hidden.

And of course, if something sounds wrong, don't write that just for the sake of following a rule. Intuition and common sense trumps all rules. If they tell you the sentence is weird, it IS.

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Good advice to always keep in mind. thanks!

Passive verbs

Am
Could be
Would be
Should be
Is
Seemed

(walk, run, catch, throw, jump. etc They aren't exactly passive, but they are weak verbs that sometimes lack an emotional touch.)

Try changing a passive sentence into an active one, like how the members suggested above. If you can't then don't worry about it. You're going to have some 'was' and all that in there anyway. Sometimes there's no avoiding it.

Okay, there's a lot of confusion out there, all because of the word "passive".

The word passive, in everyday language, may mean "not doing anything", "not reacting to stimulus", "only reacting to stimulus", "being sluggish, lazy..." and so on. Culturally, "passive" is tagged as bad, so anything which is associated with said word must be bad by definition.

Now, there's a grammatical concept called the "passive voice", and - probably because of the word "passive" in it - it has taken lots of slack from usage manuals (including Elements of Style). These usage manuals (including Elements of Style) are vague about what's supposed to be passive about the constructions and don't help you decide, really. It's almost like a religion: "passive voice" is "passive". We don't have to tell you what it means. The "active voice" moves in mysterious ways.

But the word "passive voice" is a label. What is "passive" isn't the voice, but the subject of a verb in the "passive voice". And this has a very specific meaning, too:

"She was given a present," vs. "She received a present." Grammatically, "she" is passive only in the "was given" sentence; "she" is "active" in the "received" sentence. Semantically, the real action is done by someone else in both sentences. The sentences refer to the same person in the same context. There is debate about whether using "received" makes her seem more active, because of the way grammar frames the situation.

There is, however, another - unrelated - school of thinking about words, that occasionally uses the word "passive". These are words that "do nothing to invoke a vivid meaning". The theory is that there is a hierarchy of concepts.

1. The more specific the word, the more work it does (and the less it leaves to the reader): for example, "hound" is more active than "dog".

2. Function words (words that express grammatical relationships) do not invoke meaning and are therefore "passive" in that sense, that their "evocatively neutral". This includes helping verbs as well as articles, conjunctions, etc. The idea isn't to get rid of them, but to reduce the ratio in favour of "evocative words" ("active words").

Now, since "to be" is a helping verb, it increases the "passivity" of a text (in the above sense), but it can also collaborate with a main verb to create the "passive voice" (another use of the word "passive"), which is considered "passive" (again, another use of the word "passive"). This is a terrible muddle, and it doesn't help that not all people agree with either of the stylistic concepts.

BlueLucario said:

Passive verbs

Am
Could be
Would be
Should be
Is
Seemed

(walk, run, catch, throw, jump. etc They aren't exactly passive, but they are weak verbs that sometimes lack an emotional touch.)

Try changing a passive sentence into an active one, like how the members suggested above. If you can't then don't worry about it. You're going to have some 'was' and all that in there anyway. Sometimes there's no avoiding it.

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No. We already cleared this up earlier in the post. Auxiliary verbs aren't passive. Words aren't passive. Syntax makes a sentence passive. And 'seemed' is just weak, not passive. But I hold that 'seemed' has its uses.

Also, I don't see how walk, run, catch etc. are weak. They could be too telly, if misused, but that's once again an issue of sentence construction and not the words themselves, IMO.

gypsyscarlett said:

Is the sentence: "Beth Hoffman knew she was being watched." passive?
Beth isn't the one doing the action (the watching in this case) but it sounds okay to my ears.

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It's just fine.

For the first verb, knew, Beth is both the subject and the actor. So knew is active.

For the second verb, was being watched, Beth is the subject but not the actor. So was being watched is passive.

Your nice example makes it clear that active and passive refer not to sentences, but to verbs.

Dale

Uses for passive voice

Use passive voice when:

• You don't know the identity of the actor: Beth Hoffman was being watched.
• You want to focus the reader's attention not on the actor, but on the action itself, the recipient of the action, or the effect of the action: President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963.
• You want to downplay or hide the identity of the actor, or to direct attention away from the actor: Mistakes were made.

Exercise: When else would you want to use passive voice?
Dale

Exercise: When else would you want to use passive voice?
Dale

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When common sense tells you it sounds right.

Intuition trumps all rules.