# Doesn't Passive Voice Have A Place? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 23, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339 "2014-03-23T04:32:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/21 "2014-03-24T13:09:40Z")
I know that there is a certain well-known employee training company whose course work vilifies the passive voice, especially in emails. I brought up the OPs point during a training session, but dropped it quickly when the trainer expressed passionate opinions on the subject. Sometimes a course is intended to teach the course material. Sometimes all it teaches is to follow directions w/o making waves until the idiot consultant is wasting 30 different people’s time. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/22 "2014-03-24T13:48:32Z")
In technical writing, it has its place. “Six concrete cores were obtained and tested in accordance with …” If it’s essential to know who did it, then you say so and if it isn’t, you don’t say so. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/23 "2014-03-24T20:50:42Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > In technical writing, it has its place. “Six concrete cores were obtained and tested in accordance with …” If it’s essential to know who did it, then you say so and if it isn’t, you don’t say so. Right. But it seems it’s becoming more common to say “We obtained six cores …” and frankly, papers written like that tend to be easier to read. But often, there just isn’t a good simple subject. It might have been that we did two of them, some other guys did two, one guy did one, and another did the 6th. There is just no point weighting down the delivery with all that unnecessary detail. In a programmer’s reference, I used to use passive to avoid using “this function” or \ thirty times in a function description. But when doing so, I took great pains to be sure to always specify what the caller has to do without using passive voice. All passive voice sentences in the description had the same implicit subject: the function. No exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/24 "2014-03-24T20:56:56Z")
it might. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/25 "2014-03-24T21:04:48Z")
The passive voice has a place in all types of writing. It’s not an incorrect structure - just a weak one. It should only be used deliberately: not necessarily avoided altogether. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/26 "2014-03-24T21:54:05Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > Right. But it seems it’s becoming more common to say “We obtained six cores …” and frankly, papers written like that tend to be easier to read. That’s fine for a one step process but a hundred step process turns into: We did this…Then we did this……Then we…. After that we…… The next step we……. It becomes ugly and unreadable. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/27 "2014-03-24T22:32:44Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > The passive voice is overused. It is not liked by me. It can plainly be seen that the passive voice is not something that should be used. Readers become annoyed and work is done more slowly. These truths are highly respected. Also, don’t use no double negatives. When dangling, watch your participles. If a mixed metaphor sprouts up, it should be derailed. A preposition is not an appropriate thing to end a sentence with. Don’t verb nouns. No sentence fragments. One should not shift your point of view. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2014, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/28 "2014-03-24T22:34:37Z")
Nice, but “readers become annoyed” is active voice. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/29 "2014-03-29T09:19:39Z")
I’m curious why every post in this thread seems to imply that passive voice is solely an issue for writing. In fact, the passive, especially _get_-passive, along with pseudo-passive, serves a very important function in speech, allowing English speakers to express a range of subtle and complex attitudes about their perception of agency and involvement of events. Some of the above comments, > [@friedo](#): > > There’s nothing grammatically wrong with the passive voice; it’s just a matter of style. > [@Post\_Miss\_Post](#): > > It’s a stylistic choice and in some circumstances it is better off avoided, … mischaracterize it, I believe, as simply a question of “style,” or > [@friedo](#): > > It forces you to keep your nouns as the object of the sentence; an object _does something_ rather than has something _happen to it_. This is why passive voice is supposed to be avoided in academic writing. It makes cause and effect more explicit. or just a matter of arbitrary syntactical choice. Blanket statements > [@ultrafilter](#): > > The grammatical subject of a sentence and its topic should be the same. don’t do justice to the full complexity of why or how we use language. Yes, with things like technical writing, such statements might be necessary to coach novice writers who otherwise get caught up with indirect language, but I think there’s a lot more to it. The problem is that when we hear “the passive” all we think about is what the writing guides say. ---
**Author:** ![LynnM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@LynnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LynnM)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/30 "2014-03-29T12:08:27Z")
guizot, I’m not entirely clear what you’re saying–can you elaborate? I ran across the below in Virginia Tufte’s **Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style**. Tufte wants to illustrate how passive can be clearer than active voice by the passive’s sequencing of words, thoughts, images. She rewrites this excerpt: In my own imagination, this process of thinking and writing is affirmed by the Buddhist vision of interior arrangement, where one strives to create a particular atmosphere with aesthetic minimalism, with an eye for simplicity. –bell hooks, Remembered Rapture, p40 Tufte’s rewrite in active voice: The Buddhist version of interior arrangement, where one strives to create a particular atmosphere with aesthetic minimalism, with an eye for simplicity, affirms in my own imagination this process of thinking and writing. Tufte’s point–true for this reader–is that the original is clearer, and illustrates the key use of passive: The ordering, sequencing, of elements in the sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/31 "2014-03-29T18:46:59Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > The passive voice can also be objectionable when people use it to avoid laying blame or placing responsibility. For example, “The money was stolen,” instead of “I stole the money,” or the classic, “Mistakes were made.” In these examples the desire to deflect or diffuse responsibility is obvious. However, in contexts where the identity of the agent is unknown or immaterial, a passive voice construction will likely be more concise. _I was robbed!_ is more forceful than _Somebody stole my stuff!_ ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/32 "2014-03-29T22:00:06Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > I’m curious why every post in this thread seems to imply that passive voice is solely an issue for writing. In fact, the passive, especially _get_-passive, along with pseudo-passive, serves a very important function in speech, allowing English speakers to express a range of subtle and complex attitudes about their perception of agency and involvement of events. The OP is pretty explicitly about writing. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/33 "2014-03-31T03:00:07Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > The OP is pretty explicitly about writing. Yes, and I’m _including_ the OP. While the “abuse” of passive probably happens more with writing, it’s use in speech best displays how much it “has a place,” as the OP is asking (though it’s not really clear what the OP is getting at by mentioning pronouns). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/34 "2014-03-31T09:31:00Z")
A linguist named Geoffrey Pullum has written a great deal about why the dislike of the passive voice is very misguided. First, if you look at the supposed examples of the passive that the people complaining about it give, much of the time those examples are not examples of the passive at all. The passive voice has a precise meaning in grammar, and a lot of people who complain about it don’t even understand what it is. Second, it’s not generally that bad a thing to use in writing. Yes, there are writers who use it too much. Yes, there are writers who deliberately use it to obscure what’s going on. Those writers have more general problems in their writing. Overuse of the passive is no more than one more example of how some people write badly: [http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/passives.html](http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/passives.html) [http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive\_loathing.pdf](http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.pdf) [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922) > **[Mistakes Are Made (but Using the Passive Isn’t One of Them)](https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2011/10/01/mistakes-are-made/)** > > Geoff Pullum watches as people who don’t realize they live in glass houses throw unneeded stones to ward off a nonexistent danger. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/35 "2014-03-31T20:43:53Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Nice, but “readers become annoyed” is active voice. 😛 Yes, but barely so, in much the same way as “get” in constructions like “I’m getting cold” or “I’m getting tired”. It’s about as close to passive voice as it’s possible for active voice to be. In German and, I’m pretty sure Dutch as well, the auxiliary verb marker for passive voice is the same word as for “become” in English. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/36 "2014-03-31T20:58:13Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Yes, but barely so, in much the same way as “get” in constructions like “I’m getting cold” or “I’m getting tired”. It’s about as close to passive voice as it’s possible for active voice to be. > > In German and, I’m pretty sure Dutch as well, the auxiliary verb marker for passive voice is the same word as for “become” in English. Not unlike the Latin _fio, fieri, factus sum_, “to be made or to become” - which conjugates very oddly; and in the Creed, “_et homo factus est_” is generally rendered “and was made man” rather than “and became man”. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/37 "2014-03-31T21:37:11Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > In these examples the desire to deflect or diffuse responsibility is obvious. However, in contexts where the identity of the agent is unknown or immaterial, a passive voice construction will likely be more concise. _I was robbed!_ is more forceful than _Somebody stole my stuff!_ Also, YOU as the robbed person, is what is important, which is why another use of the passive voice is to maintain parallel structures, and keep the emphasis on the relevant topic. You ask a little kid how her day at school was, and she say “I got an A in spelling, I did my oral book report, and I got picked on by a mean fifth grader on the playground.” The last clause is passive, but it allows her to keep herself as the subject of all three clauses. Nice obscure AC Doyle reference. I read _Land of Mists_ too. BTW, my favorite passive voice dodges of responsibility are the “problems” of “battered women,” or “abused children.” No, the problems are men who beat their wives and girlfriends, and parents who abuse their children. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/38 "2014-04-02T18:40:44Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > In German and, I’m pretty sure Dutch as well, the auxiliary verb marker for passive voice is the same word as for “become” in English. In English we also use _get_, as in **RivkahChaya** ’s example above, which (for non-formal speech) would be likely in the other example above about robbery – _I got robbed!_ We also call upon “pseudo-passive” constructions, sometimes called “causatives.” (i.e., _I’m going to have the car fixed_.) Corpus studies indicate that the most common use (in speech) of the _get_-passive is with _pay_, (probably because income and earnings are of such importance in so much spoken interaction). There’s an important and useful difference in conversational discourse between: a) _I get paid a lot for this work_. and b) _My employer pays me a lot for this work_. and this difference is not just a question of style, or obfuscation, but rather, as others have mentioned above, directing or maintaining focus, eliciting empathy, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/39 "2014-04-02T19:42:14Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > The passive voice can also be objectionable when people use it to avoid laying blame or placing responsibility. For example, “The money was stolen,” instead of “I stole the money,” or the classic, “Mistakes were made.” Stephen Pinker has a passage in **The Stuff of Thought** where he discusses varbs that are active but function as passive: -The window broke when we were playing baseball in the living room. -The dish fell when I was washing dishes. -My pencil point snapped. There are plenty of occasions where the active voice can also be used to avoid responsibility, by acting as though inanimate objects are taking actions on their own. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339/40 "2014-04-02T19:56:13Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > There are plenty of occasions where the active voice can also be used to avoid responsibility, by acting as though inanimate objects are taking actions on their own. Yes, and the point is that grammatical forms are not autonomous constituents of language, but that their “meaning” becomes functional only when realized through particular semantics. In other words, semantics determines grammatical form is as much as anything else, and the two can’t be arbitrarily separated if you want understand what’s really happening with language. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doesnt-passive-voice-have-a-place/684339.md?page=1)