Angela Elson
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ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE VOICE

10/20/2016

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In passive voice: This week’s grammar tip is brought to you by a query from the peanut gallery!
In active voice: A query from the peanut gallery brought you this week’s grammar tip!

  • What is the difference between active voice and passive voice?
    • In a sentence written in active voice, the subject does an action to an object.
      • Example: I ate ten pizzas.
    • In a sentence written in passive voice, this subject-action-object sequence is backward, making the object acted upon by the subject
      • Example: Ten pizzas were eaten by me.
  • Which is preferred?
    • Active voice is usually preferred since passive is thought by some to be wordy, vague and generally inefficient.
      • Passive: Ten pairs of shoes were bought. (By whom?)
      • Active: Bob bought ten pairs of shoes. (That clears up most everything.)
  • So is passive voice wrong?
    • Not entirely. Because it accentuates a different part of the sentence, passive voice is useful in certain situations:
      • To avoid owning up to something.
        • Passive: You are being dumped. (The lack of I in this sentence allows the speaker to shirk responsibility.)
        • Active: I am dumping you. (No getting around that.)
      • If the person doing the action isn’t known or isn’t important.
        • Passive: My car was stolen. (This focuses on the car.)
        • Active: Somebody stole my car. (Of course someone stole it… but that’s not exactly the most important part.
    • Passive voice can also be used to mix up sentence structure or focus on the more important aspect by putting it first.
      • All active: This house has a blue door, and a lock keeps it secure.
      • Some passive: This house has a blue door and is kept secure by a lock.
        • The idea of security might be more important than the lock itself, so you could use passive voice to accentuate that rather than the other way around.
  • In summary:
    • Passive voice can be used—but only sparingly and strategically.
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