I’ve seen several articles about Josh Duggar now that quote the “apology” he posted (the first one, which they say was quickly deleted and replaced), and two of those articles mention – disapprovingly – of his use of the passive voice. (Reminiscent of Dan Quayle’s lame “Phone calls were made” line.)
What am I missing here? Where is this the passive voice?
One cite: Article by Dan Savage. The other article (I don’t remember where it was; maybe it was the Wonkette article) calls his use of passive voice “abhorrent”. But the above quote isn’t what I think “passive voice” is. Is it?
I’m sure this is what those people meant when they referred to the “passive voice.”
Of course, it isn’t passive, but there are ways of clouding agency in English without technically using passive constructions. The has long been a kind of mindless, mechanical stigma to the passive voice, often perpetuated by those who proffer simplistic maxims about “good writing.” That’s probably why the critics of Duggar just automatically used that label, albeit incorrectly. Their concern is valid; they just used the wrong term.
This is true, but being continuous or simple past doesn’t preclude something from being passive. Passive is voice. Past is tense. Continuous is aspect (not a tense). They are three different things that are not mutually exclusive.
So, “the passive voice is used by me” is the passive voice whereas “I use the active voice” is active, right?
Guizot’s point about it being the wrong term but the right idea makes me wonder: What trick is Duggar using there? I think we can all see he’s trying to make it slide off of him as much as possible but I don’t know enough about semantics to offer a precise diagnosis.
Also, what are the situations and uses for which the passive voice is a good tool, besides passing off the buck?
Could it be the phrase “this became an addiction for me” that is bothering people? I mean, I guess he could have said, “I became addicted to porn”. But I don’t really see the problem/passive voice with the original construction.
Certain verbs, just by their intrinsic meaning, (by their semantics), don’t necessarily imbue their subjects with agency. The above mentioned occur, or happen, are like that.
You can say:
*Mistakes were made.*which is technically passive voice, or you can say:*Mistakes happened.*Which is technically active voice (not passive), but in either case, you don’t identify the agent of the action–the person who committed the mistakes.
One situation is scientific writing, where the agent is not important:*The mice were injected with 10 ml of such-and-such substance.*It’s not important who injected the mice, and moreover, it’s obvious that it was just a technician, etc.
Also, sometimes for discursive reasons passive voice can in fact just be simpler or more elegant, without obfuscating anything. (I’ll give an example later, when I get a moment, if you want.)
I’m also spotting “I have been the biggest hypocrite ever” as a distancing technique. It implies that this deplorable state of affairs prevailed at some possibly quite distant point in the past. (E.g. “I have been to Paris”, meaning I spent a weekend there 35 years ago.) I think if Duggar was facing up to himself he would be more likely to say something like “I am a hypocrite*”
I know. The other poster offered an example, actually two examples, of something as passive voice. The sentence proffered does not contain passive voice. FYI: general usage in English is to consider past perfect, present perfect, future perfect continuous, etc. as being tenses.
Yes, I realize that, and it’s unfortunate, because I believe that that usage has contributed to the obsessive and disproportionate focus on tense in language instruction in American high schools and colleges–to the detrimental exclusion of other equally important aspects of language, particularly function, and the role of semantics in grammar. In my professional experience of language program evaluation, this is one of the more intractable problems that undermine language teaching, considering how much more there is to language proficiency than mastery of tense.
To change the emphasis or when the actor is unknown or cannot be specified.
“I saved her life when I stopped the car” implies I was the most important part of the event. “Her life was saved when the car was stopped” emphasizes that a life was saved.
“The nascent labor movement was crushed during this period” - there were several forces working in concert which will be outlined in the rest of the paper.
Some authors prefer using “we” rather than the passive voice when describing studies - “We injected the mice …”.
When used by a non-linguist, “the passive voice” means “I dislike this construction but am unable to articulate why”.
They generally believe it to be ungrammatical and/or inherently dishonest, neither of which are true.
Thinking the passive voice is usually inappropriate is fine. Thinking it’s inherently bad and must never be used is on par with believing split infinitives are ungrammatical.
