Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Great Moments in Passive Voice Revisions


Thanks for this submission, Dillon Darnell.
This one was submitted by Kayla Payne. Thanks!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

This is from "The Poisonwood Bible". (I at first attempted to find some passive voice in my childhood favorite, "The Little House on the Prairie" but Laura Ingles Wilder is one concise and active writer.)
"It wasn't just me; there were crimes strewn six ways to Sunday..."

Active: "It wasn't just me; we strew crimes six ways to Sunday..."
The passive voice was the better one to use in this context, because the speaker is leaving the culprit of these crimes ambiguous on purpose. In the entire page I read this was the only sentence I found in the passive voice, it was obviously a conscious decision and I believe a good one stylistically.

Unknown said...

An example of the passive voice from Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman:" "Cousin Joshua was frustrated by the authorities when he fired upon the president of the University, who in his opinion was little more than a sewage disposal expert."

To change it to the active voice: The authorities frustrated Cousin Joshua...

Desarae Hall said...

An example of the passive from Brooke Davis's "Lost & Found:" "It was too hard to get the words out."

Active: The words are too hard to get out.

I hope this is a right example. Knowing my luck probably not.

thegidget said...

In The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes exclaims, "No, your boy had been observed, and that gave me a guide where to look." This is written in the passive voice. To make it active, the sentence would need to say something like "Someone observed the boy, and that gave me a guide where to look." However, in this case, passive actually works because it adds mystery to the writing. Doyle chose to use passive voice here because the person who observed the boy is unknown.
Nikki Ennis

Unknown said...

After searching the two news pages that came to mind, I found an article on ESPN that had something to do with college football predictions and figured it ought to have something in the passive voice. I was right.

"Playoff spots will be claimed, a championship will be won, a stiff-arm trophy will be hoisted — and foolishly confident prognosticators will gaze into crystal balls to attempt to tell you who’s going to do each of those things and more."

To change it I would say

"The best teams from all over the region will claim the four playoff spots, the best team will will the championship, a player will receive a stiff-arm trophy--and foolishly confident prognosticators will gaze into crystal balls to attempt to tell you who’s going to do each of those things and more."

Of course, it seems it may be more interesting to read in passive voice!

Unknown said...

Oh, and in the case that I need to provide the link:
https://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-college-football-predictions-playoff-national-champion-heisman-surprise-ohio-state-alabama/

Unknown said...

In an article that I used for an essay last semester called, "Watchmen and the Birth of Respect for the Graphic Novel", I may have found a sentence using the passive voice.

"Officially banned from public servitude, costumed superheroes are trying to get on with their lives after having been forbidden to wear their tights and underwear and utility belts".

Though written in the passive voiice, the tone adds some humor to the sentence, which makes it seem okay to be written that way.

Hopefully I am not way off base with this example!